Tangled Strings and Technicalities
by smallesttabbycat
Summary: **2018 Marauder Medals nominee** An unlikely series of events causes Sirius Black, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood to arrive in 1978. The wizarding world is in all-out war. Regulus Black sits poised to take the Dark Mark. Remus Lupin joins the Order. Can they change the fates of the ones they love? Can they save themselves? SB/HG, GW/RL, RAB/OCs.
1. Chapter 1: Technicality

**Chapter One: Technicality**

 _Sirius_

 _1996, in Death_

Sirius Black peeled himself up from the ground. So this was death. He was dead. Interesting.

His parents would kill him. If he hadn't already died, that is. Bit hard to kill someone who was dead. The last Black, dead before managing to produce a heir. Sirius could picture their angry, judging faces, all twisted up in anger at his failings. His mum would shout and scream, his dad would be silently angry.

Oh, he knew he was a shit heir to the Black family name, but this one would take the proverbial biscuit. He hoped the biscuit was a Ginger Newt.

He hoped death did not involve having to see his parents.

Sirius stood and stared around him. Death was an odd place. It looked much like the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Except lacking the students, which made it a whole lot less noisy. He definitely recognised the room though, from the pillars around the edges, the tall windows, and the house tables to the raised dais at the front with the teacher's table.

No teachers, either. Now here was something that was for the best. Death wasn't so bad, after all.

Sirius thought he'd try out getting himself some food. He walked over to the table that would have been the Gryffindor table, had this been the Hogwarts Great Hall, and took a seat on a bench. He plumped for the location he'd sat in his first night at Hogwarts, where James had sat next to him. It felt right, somehow.

To Sirius' great surprise, a few plates of food appeared in front of him. Not a feast, but a decent meal nonetheless. Pork chops, a plate of steamed rice, and what looked like banana fritters. He bit into one experimentally. Definitely banana fritters.

The House Elves of Death (which was what Sirius was choosing to call whoever had provided this food) were not quite as good as those at Hogwarts, but the food was better than anything Kreacher had ever given him. Sirius was a shit cook. He'd moved into a flat when he came of age, and it was the first time in his life he'd ever tried to make a meal. It had been an utter disaster, and James had come and bailed him out.

When he had finished his meal, Sirius turned his attention to working out where the hell this was. Perhaps he should have prioritised that over eating. Remus would have.

It was at this point that Sirius noticed he was naked. Funny. He'd died in clothes. And plates were available in death, so why shouldn't clothes be? Maybe they didn't transcend. That wasn't the right word. Was it? They didn't come through. Clothes couldn't die.

Still, he didn't need any. There wasn't exactly anyone else around. He was comfortable in his body.

He was slightly less comfortable when he realised that there was in fact someone else around.

James fucking Potter.

"Hello," said James.

"Hello! Fifteen years almost and you say 'hello' as if it was yesterday?"

"Pretty much."

Sirius made to hug James, and couldn't understand why his old friend was pulling back.

"Mate, you're not wearing any clothes."

"Yeah. Sorry. Forgot we'd banned naked hugging."

"It was a long time ago we had that discussion, wasn't it? Third year?"

"I think so. How do I get clothes around here?"

As soon as he thought he'd wanted some, a set appeared on the bench where he'd eaten his meal. Sirius pulled them on, not really noticing what they were, and hugged James. This time, the other man reciprocated.

"So, how have you been?" asked Sirius. "How's Death? What's it like? Can I watch what's going on down there? I want to make sure Harry is okay."

"It's not quite that simple," said James.

Sirius sighed. It never was. Not in his life. Each time something good happened, it was generally taken away fairly quickly.

"What now?" he asked.

"See, you're not technically dead."

"I'm what?"

"Not technically dead."

"I heard it, I don't understand it."

"Bellatrix's curse didn't kill you. It immobilised you, and you fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. You never died. You fell into Death."

"Does that matter?"

"That's what I'm telling you. It does. Sirius, you never fucking listened in life and it's clear you don't here either. You. Are. Not. Dead. You're here by accident."

"Says who?"

"If I'm honest, I'm not sure," said James, fluffing his hair in a motion Sirius had seen so many hundreds of times before. The action was the only familiar thing around here. "I'm the messenger."

"The messenger?"

"When you die, you get someone come out to greet you. Someone already dead, who was a figure you knew and respected or looked up to when you were alive. I got my parents."

"And I got you. I never looked up to you."

"Course you did. Me, star Quidditch player, leader of the most famous gang in school, beloved by girls, excellent student."

"Did not."

"Reckon they were scraping the barrel for you, if I'm honest. Couldn't use your parents, could they, and if you respected anyone it was McGonagall and Dumbledore and they're both firmly still alive. Remus would have been better, but also alive, so you're stuck with me."

"It's a good job Remus is still alive. Harry's going to need him."

"He will." James took off his glasses and rubbed them, before looking at Sirius. Sirius thought he could see a small tear in his old friend's eye.

"I tried," said Sirius.

"You did your best."

"I was stupid. I shouldn't have gone after Peter and got caught. I could have been there for Harry."

"I'd have gone after that slimy rat if I'd have been in your shoes."

They sat in silence for a moment. Sirius inspected his clothes. They were Muggle clothes, the exact style he wore in his teens when he was trying to annoy his parents. The t-shirt was a Flashing Bludgers one, which he'd bought almost an exact duplicate of the summer after fourth year when the band was big amongst young wizards and he'd gone to a concert with James and Remus.

"So," he said. "If I'm not dead, what am I?"

"Alive," said James, as if explaining the basics to a young child.

"Right," said Sirius. "Are you going to send me back then?"

"It's not quite that simple," said James, again. Sirius groaned. "I can't. Something to do with damaging the reputation of the Veil. You can't go back to your current timeline because otherwise everyone would know that falling through the Veil doesn't kill you, and Death would be swamped with people trying to get in here for fun or to see loved ones."

Sirius' first thought was that it was an absurd suggestion. Then he thought about it a little bit more. For a starter, at least half of the Gryffindors he'd ever known would have done it for a dare, because they could. Some smarter types would want to research Death.

And would he honestly have wanted to talk to James, if he'd known he could? Of course.

He realised James was right.

"So what, then?" he asked.

"That's your choice," said James. "If you want to, you're allowed to die at this point and go on. Or become a ghost, if you prefer. Why anyone would want that, I don't know. I'm not supposed to tell you which to choose or make one seem better or worse. Or you can choose to live, but you can't go back to the point you died and I can't set you down in the future."

"I can go to the past?"

"If you want."

"And will I be me at my age, or me as I was then?"

"You, as you are now. Shit. How old are you? How old would I be now?"

"Thirty six."

"Wow."

"And I could go back anywhere?"

"I wasn't given any restrictions."

"I don't understand."

"I've explained it all to you in baby steps. Twice, at points. I'm not sure what is left to not understand."

"Everything," said Sirius. The text on his t-shirt was flashing different colours, just as the original had.

"Look," said James. "Maybe give that tiny brain of yours a rest, and stop trying to understand it. Just take the choice. I'm not allowed to tell you what to do… but, I know what I'd do."

"What?" asked Sirius. He thought he knew already.

"Go back a bit, and stop Voldemort and his Death Eaters before they could get my wife and son. Saving myself would be an obvious bonus."

"I can change the past?"

"If you go into the past, you change it. Don't you remember the lecture we got from Dumbledore that time we tried to make a Time Turner so that Remus didn't have to get bitten?"

"Yes. I was saved with a Time Turner by your son and his friend Hermione, on Dumbledore's orders."

"Good lad. Knew he had enough of his father in him."

"Your head hasn't deflated in being dead, has it? Okay. I choose to go back."

"Where to? When you choose, that's our time up."

"I don't want to leave you again, James."

"I don't want to be stuck here. Unfortunately, I died properly. Like a man, or more like a fucking Muggle, since I didn't even take my wand to to the door with me. You regret going after Wormtail; I regret that."

"It wouldn't have made a difference."

"That's what I try to tell myself. And I'm choosing to take that as empathy, not saying I'm a shit wizard."

"How's Lily?"

"It's not really like that up here. I'm only here and now because I'm needed. That's how it works. Until we're needed, it's like being asleep."

"Oh."

"Better choose your time. I was told this wasn't a school reunion. Sorry I can't have longer with you, mate. I've missed you. I've missed all of you, except that fucking rat."

"I've missed you, too."

For a few moments, they sat in silence again. James, dressed in grey robes, wiped the lenses of his glasses on them again. Sirius eyed his feet. He'd not bothered to ask for shoes. Would he need them? He didn't want to wake up in his new time without shoes.

As he thought that, a pair of black leather boots and some slightly lurid stripy socks appeared. He pulled them on, in silence.

"Nice socks," said James.

"What's with the Great Hall?" asked Sirius.

"I don't know," said James, looking around. "You choose your own environment, up here. My parents met me in our old sitting room from when I was a child."

Sirius thought about that.

"Okay," he said, finally. "1978."

"Good luck," said James, as the Great Hall began to fall away around them, the edges of the room fading into black. The two men hugged, breaking away before James began to disappear too. Sirius was alone once more.


	2. Chapter 2: Black Box

**Chapter Two: Black Box**

 _Hermione_

 _June 2002: Junior Undersecretary to the Minister's Office, Ministry of Magic_

"Ron's just panicking," said Ginny Weasley, stretching out her legs in the most comfortable chair in Hermione's office. It was a very lovely chair, a squashy armchair covered in purple material. Hermione liked to sit in it reading papers. "He's a bit insensitive, yes, but he wouldn't try to hurt you deliberately."

"Lavender Brown," muttered Hermione, sat behind her desk which was piled with parchment, books and quills. She clenched her teeth at the thought.

"Come on, he was what, sixteen? Seventeen? Ron wasn't very smart at seventeen."

"You can say that again."

"I'm willing to sit here and complain about my brother whenever you want," said Ginny. "Any of them, really. I'm even at the point where I can happily badmouth Fred now. But I don't think Ron, or any of them, would try to be nasty just to make you hate him."

"I haven't got anything against any of your other brothers," said Hermione, slightly avoiding Ginny's point. She liked Ginny, a lot, but perhaps she wasn't the best person to offload to about her relationship. In some ways she was, because she did always enjoy a moan about Ron. In other ways… well, siblings stuck up for each other in the end, didn't they.

"Probably because you don't know them as well as you known Ron. Essentially, they're all as bad as each other."

"Even Bill?"

"Bill's got a serious complex about his stuff. Nobody touches Bill's stuff, or you get hexed into next month. And he's a bit of a wanker about knowing more than the rest of us about stuff, because he's the oldest. But when you're all adults, who's the oldest kind of ceases to matter"

"I hated being an only child as a kid."

"I hated being the youngest of seven."

"Is this all still part of the interview?" asked Luna Lovegood, from a chair in the corner of the room. She was using a filing cabinet as a desk, with parchment spread everywhere, and a lilac quill floated above it.

"No, Luna, sorry. I don't really want my love life in The Quibbler," said Hermione. "Ginny shouldn't even be here."

"You invited me," Ginny retorted. "It's entirely not my fault that you double-booked our catch-up with your interview with Luna."

"It's a profile, actually," said Luna. "As the new Junior Undersecretary to the Minister, Hermione is a very influential figure in the post-war government. My readers want to know her positions on important issues of the day."

Hermione had been reluctant to agree to the interview. Luna was nice, but as a journalist had a varied output. Hermione had been mostly expecting questions about creatures that did not exist. She'd been pleasantly surprised. Luna had asked her about her priorities for change in the magical community, and where she felt the Ministry was going. She'd even kept her magical creature questions to be about those that did exist.

"What did Ronald do?" asked Luna.

"He's saying he doesn't know if he's ready to move in with Hermione. I told him he should get over himself and just do it. Hermione's got quite reasonably upset over it."

"This is the third bloody time we've had this argument," said Hermione. "He's getting to the point where I'm going to think he's not serious about us."

"He is," Ginny assured her. "He's just a knob."

"I noticed he could be, sometimes, when we were at school," said Luna. "He does have a good heart, though."

"A knob of the highest order," agreed Hermione.

"Well," said Ginny. "Bitching about my brother is all well and good, but I've got to get going. Promised to meet Mum after I was done here. Something about wedding favours. I think they're the wrong colour. She ordered blue. These are turquoise, she says."

"Does it matter?" asked Hermione.

"Not a clue," Ginny sighed. "I just want to get married. I don't actually care about the favours. But Bill and Fleur's wedding was ruined by Death Eaters, Audrey's family planned hers and Percy's, George and Angelina eloped, so Mum thinks she's running out of chances for the perfect Weasley wedding. Until Ron pops the question, that is."

"Fat chance of that."

"Ronald is a funny person," said Luna. "I think he's planning something rather soon."

"Really?" asked Hermione. She believed nothing of the sort. He wouldn't even move in with her, which was hardly the behaviour of a man who was about to propose. Although he had said some lovely things when he was apologising. And brought flowers.

Actions were more important than words, she'd told him, but she'd put the flowers in pride of place anyway.

"But besides, wedding favours are such bad luck," said Luna, and expanded on that point as she packed away her parchment to leave with Ginny.

"I'll tell Mum that," said Ginny, when Luna had finished. "Might get her to at least get the thing in perspective. The guest list is ridiculous. Half the wizarding world seems to think they're entitled to come because of who Harry is. We've got the Minister of Magic, because it's Kingsley and we like him, although whoever it was they'd probably want an invite. The Headmistress of Hogwarts, and what seems like half the staff, including Hagrid and Grawp, a giant for goodness sake. The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Supreme Mupwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. Plus my Quidditch team, the England team, a few foreign players, and the Keeper of the Chudley Cannons as a favour to Ron. Oh, and the Chair of the International Quidditch Organisation and the organisers of the World Cup."

Hermione grinned. "And Harry's Muggle cousin and his girlfriend. Harry's godson and his grandmother. All the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix. Every redhead in Devon."

"The Weasleys are a bigger family than you can possibly imagine," sighed Ginny.

"The entire Auror Office. Heads of most the Departments. A couple of ghosts."

"Nearly Headless Nick invited Harry to his deathday party once, and that apparently requires an invite to our wedding," said Ginny. "Even Mum wasn't aware of that bit of etiquette."

"Pretty much everyone in my year or yours at school," continued Hermione.

"Including both my ex-boyfriends," said Ginny with a grimace. "I know Harry and Dean play Quidditch sometimes, but Michael Corner did not need to be on the list."

"Wedding of the year, though," laughed Hermione, enjoying herself now. "This is what you've got to suffer for being the Couple of the Century, or whatever it was Witch Weekly called you."

"Fucking Witch Weekly wants an exclusive on my wedding dress," Ginny grumbled. "Luna, does The Quibbler want rights to the official bridesmaid dress reveal? Great article, that."

"I'm not sure that's the kind of thing Daddy likes to cover," said Luna. "I'd better get this article back to him, anyway. We go to press tomorrow, and he likes to have everything organised by the night before. He's a very organised man, Daddy is."

"I'll walk you down to the Atrium," said Hermione. "I need to return a few things to the Department of Mysteries."

"Don't trust them in there," said Luna. "They're breeding time down there."

"You can't breed time," said Ginny. "Anyway, they don't do time experiments any more, do they Hermione? We smashed their time turners years ago."

Hermione looked at the tiny black box. For once, Luna was closer to the truth than Ginny. She slipped it into her pocket, and gathered up the parchments that went with it. To be on the safe side, she slipped them into a cardboard document wallet. These were best not seen by most eyes in the Ministry's corridors.

Ginny and Luna continued to argue about the nature of time travel on their way to the lifts. Hermione pressed the buttons, considering the other two were far too distracted. It was a very good job nobody with any knowledge of her current projects was in the lift, just an elderly wizard from Magical Maintenance and a bloke from the Department of Magical Cooperation who was talking in fluent Spanish to a quill. They'd likely have assumed she'd told Luna and Ginny something.

Although, time travel had been speculated enough in the papers lately that it could all be a giant coincidence. She expected that's how Luna had leapt on the topic. Although Luna's primary reading material was still her dad's magazine, and some books Hermione wouldn't have chosen from the library, she did now venture out into the mainstream press from time to time.

"Atrium," said the cool voice of the lift.

"This is where I leave you," said Hermione, getting out with them to say goodbye. "Are you alright getting out?"

"Oh yes," said Luna, while Ginny nodded. The three witches hugged. As Ginny pulled away, she knocked into Hermione's folder and sheets of parchment flew everywhere.

"Oh crap, sorry," said Ginny, reaching to pick them up.

"Let me, please, it's confidential," said Hermione. Luna had already bent down to try and help, and in her rush to beat them to the most secretive of the papers Hermione knocked into both of the others.

The tiny black box fell out of her pocket, and the golden clasp fell open. Ginny and Luna both reached for it.

"Don't!" Hermione cried.

Her hand touched the box just as the other two grabbed it. She felt a jerk in the back of her neck, and the Atrium span away from them.


	3. Chapter 3: Suspicions

**Chapter Three: Suspicions**

 _Sirius  
June 1978, the Department of Mysteries, Ministry of Magic_

Well, you probably should come out of Death as you got in, thought Sirius, as he landed on his arse next to the Veil. Fucking hurt more than dying, this living again. Wouldn't have hurt for it to be a little bit more dignified.

Still, nobody around to see, at least. He'd probably have been arrested on sight.

He got himself to his feet, and checked himself out. No obvious signs that he'd been in Death. Good. Wearing clothes. Very good. They were the same ones he'd had on when temporarily dead. The Flashing Bludgers t-shirt was at least decade-appropriate.

Interesting, wasn't it, that clothes came out of Death with you, but didn't go in with you.

It would be best to get out of the Department of Mysteries fast, before he either got put in Azkaban for breaking and entering or the Unspeakables decided he was a curiosity to be investigated. His dad had invited an Unspeakable around for dinner, once. Sirius was wary of them.

He started off in the direction he thought was out, although where he was intending to go once he got out of the Department was a mystery.

Ha.

It occurred to Sirius that he was free, properly free, for the first time since November 1981, the first time around. In this time, he wasn't a fugitive. This made him want to run out of the Ministry and do something really stupid, just because he could, but then that would be giving Dumbledore and Molly Weasley all the reasons they needed to have been absolutely right back in 1996.

Why did they have to be right?

 _Patience, Black_ , he thought, in Minerva McGonagall's voice. He liked to use her voice when telling himself off. It made him take himself more seriously. Sirius had once, on one of the many days in Azkaban, tried to rationalise with himself why exactly he felt the need to use someone else's voice in order to take his own thought seriously. It was either the effect of the Dementors that made him fail, or that he just wasn't able to answer the question.

Perhaps it was after hours, because he didn't see anyone on his rather slow and full of wrong turns journey out of the Department. He shut the door behind him, hoping never to have to encounter that place again.

He needed a plan. He'd make his way out of the Ministry, Apparate to the Leaky Cauldron, and try and get some gold out of his account. There was another Sirius Black in this time period with an account, and so he should be able to access their gold. His gold. It was a headfuck, but if he kept it simple he'd be able to convince the goblins to give him access. He could then rent a room at the Leaky, under a fake name, and find somewhere more permanent after he'd had a meal.

As he walked up the seemingly endless corridor from the Department of Mysteries to the lifts, he thought about his conversation with James. It had been highly unsatisfactory. He'd spent, what, fourteen years thinking of all the things he'd say to James if he was able to see him again, and he'd said none of them. Mostly, he'd whinged about being dead and failed to understand what James was saying.

Truth be told, Sirius still wasn't sure he understood what James had been saying.

But that was beside the point.

He should have told James about Harry, for starters. If he was dead, and had a son that was living, he'd want to know all about him and how he was doing. Sirius should have told James what a great boy Harry was, and…

Fuck. Sirius didn't actually know if Harry had survived their little thing at the Department of Mysteries. He'd last seen him with the boy from Hogwarts that wasn't Ron, and Remus. And then he'd got distracted with Bellatrix. Remus would have seen him alright, wouldn't he?

Well, that just meant his job here to sort everything out was even more urgent.

He'd been wrong about the time. It was clearly working hours as, when he approached the lifts, the Ministry was busy. This was fine. Non-workers were allowed in quite a few parts of the Ministry buildings, and it wasn't necessarily common knowledge which. As long as he wasn't spotted glaringly out of bounds, he'd be absolutely fine.

He picked a lift which looked mostly full of lower ranking Ministry workers, and pressed the button for the Atrium.

It was as he was getting out of the lift that he noticed something odd. The lift area was mostly filled with Ministry workers, in their Ministry uniforms of various colours, going about their daily business. The walls were plastered with posters raising awareness of the activities of Death Eaters, and a few on common magical diseases and one lonely notice for the Ministry Quidditch League. Sirius remembered the Death Eater posters. They were mostly designed to scare witches and wizards into their homes and out of the way, he'd always thought. It was one way to try and keep people safe.

It wasn't the workers or the posters that were odd. It was the small group of women clustered by a lift opposite, deep in conversation.

None of them worked there. One of them wore robes of a shimmering gold, and flowers in her hair, which was in no Ministry dress code he recognised. Another was in Muggle clothing, although not clothes he'd seen before. The third could possibly have passed for a Ministry worker, with robes of a deep crimson, but they weren't uniform. Uniform for all but the highest levels, the Minister, his staff and the Department Heads, hadn't been abolished until 1983 under Bagnold. And she was too young to be any of those people.

And they just didn't look as though they were supposed to be here.

Visitors. They must be.

Just because he was hiding something, didn't mean anyone else was.

Did it?

They did look suspicious. Mad-Eye Moody had taught him, well, seventeen years ago but also a year ago, now that was confusing, to look for the suspicious and to have his eye on it. And, well, this was screaming suspicious.

Unbidden, Sirius remembered the time James had thought a group of men were acting suspiciously near to a known Death Eater base, and tried to infiltrate them. They'd been Muggles, and he'd ended up getting beaten up by them.

Well, these women were unlikely to beat him up, and he was able to use his wand to defend himself.

Wait, did he have a wand?

He checked the pocket of the jeans, and found his wand. Relief flooded through him, and he felt the familiar tingle as his hand brushed the polished wood.

Technically, this was not his wand, not the one he'd chosen at eleven. It was one Remus had acquired for him, and had never worked as well as his real wand. It worked a lot better than the one he'd stolen immediately after Azkaban, though, so he was sticking with it. Maybe he could visit Ollivander's, and get something that worked properly.

After he'd worked out what these women were up to. A puzzle would get his brain working nicely. There was a slight fuzziness in his brain, after his imprisonment, self-imprisonment, and death.

Not surprising, really.

The women were clearly arguing, and didn't want to be overheard. He inched closer.

"What even was that?"

"I can't tell you, it's confidential," said the brown-haired woman in the fancy crimson robes.

"You can if something's happened to us because of it!" said the Muggle-clothed woman, flicking her ginger hair over her shoulder. "I'm sure that's an allowed exception!"

"It's not," said crimson-robes.

"I think we may not be where we started off, temporally, although we appear to be where we are in physical space," said the blonde one in the shimmering robes. She was the only one of the group looking around, especially at the posters on the walls. "There's Death Eaters in this Ministry. And the lift doors are different. And the uniforms. I wonder if the Ministry are having a history day."

She was the only one whose face he could see, and she looked vaguely familiar to Sirius. There was something about the soft face with the weirdly pale, slightly protruding eyes that he'd seen before. He shook his head.

Mad-Eye had warned him about wanting to see familiarity when in a stressful and unfamiliar environment. He'd experienced this before. It had nearly got him killed, twice, but he'd learnt now.

Sirius still wanted to keep an eye on the three women. He picked up a Daily Prophet someone had abandoned on the floor, and walked over to a bench near to them. He sat down, parked himself firmly behind his paper, and listened in. A surprisingly effective surveillance technique for one that was so simple.

"I'm telling you, you're allowed to break the rules occasionally! There's something not right and I need to know what it is!" the ginger girl was saying, hands waving as she spoke.

The blonde girl had left the group and was carefully assessing one of the posters. Interestingly, she'd chosen the one about the Quidditch League. She picked up the corner of it with her wand, inspecting the parchment it was printed on, almost. She had an interesting manner, but she almost certainly wasn't a threat.

Sirius didn't genuinely think any of them were a threat. But it was interesting, and he had nothing better to do.

"Hermione, for fuck's sake!"

Hermione. That was Harry's best friend's name. She'd had brown hair, too, though the Hermione in 1996's was far bushier and she'd never worn robes like this Hermione. It wasn't a name you heard often, but it was almost certainly a coincidence.

As he thought that, three things happened that made Sirius almost certain it was not in fact a coincidence.

Firstly, the ginger girl was referred to as Ginny. Ginny was Ron Weasley's sister and a friend of Hermione's in his timeline. Another Ginny and another Hermione together, when the names weren't common? And this Ginny also had hair of the exact shade of red that Ginny Weasley had.

Secondly, the Hermione hissed about the Department of Mysteries and their experimentation with time.

And thirdly, the blonde girl wandered back to her friends, and announced loudly that the year was 1978, which produced shocked reactions in both of the other women.

This was either one heck of a coincidence, or they were also time travelling.

It never rains but it pours. A Muggle expression, that he'd borrowed off Remus' mum, along with the also great 'now, in a minute', that Sirius loved. And that worked quite well here and now.

Fucking hell, was another thing that worked right now.

"Hermione, what the hell?" said Ginny, in the angriest whisper Sirius had ever heard. He peered over the top of his paper, and turned a page so as to more convincingly give the impression that he was reading it. "Time travel?"

"I told you it was confidential!" said Hermione, crossly. "I don't think that I should tell you this, but the Department of Mysteries have been experimenting with creating new Time Turners and they asked me to take a look! I've read all the research, and they delivered a sample of where they're at with the practical part of the research, and I was going to return it. And the whole things so unstable that I was going to suggest to Kingsley that they stopped the practical research until the Arithmancy and the other theoretical elements were more together. It must have brought us here when it was knocked."

Kingsley. The Kingsley from 1996, and likely the same one, was an Auror. Who was he now if he was messing with Time?

"That's all I wanted to know in the first place," said Ginny, visibly deflating slightly. "I wanted to know what I was dealing with. Fuck. Can we go back?"

"I don't know," said Hermione. Her eyes flicked to the small black box she was holding in her hand. "I don't know how this works to use. It's not supposed to be operational yet."

"Why did it pick here?" asked Ginny, looking around.

"I think you mean, why did it pick now?" asked the blonde girl, who had removed one of the flowers from her hair and was gently removing the petals. They formed a neat puddle around her left foot. "We are still in the Ministry, which must be in the same geographical location. We have moved through time."

Ginny appeared to be ignoring her.

"We can work this out," said Hermione. "I have at least most of the papers here on how this was created. If we can get somewhere private, I may be able to work out how to put it back together."

"And then we just need to work out how to use it. Trial and error with time travel, I'm sure that goes fabulously," said Ginny. "Fucking hell, Hermione. Next time, put it in a spelled box or something. I'm going to miss my meeting with Mum. She's going to be livid. The favours may never be right. Shit. What if I miss the wedding? And the Cup? It's my World Cup debut in two weeks Hermione!"

"The beauty of time travel is that you can go back to any point," said the blonde. "We cannot miss an event that we can travel to just before."

"We couldn't control it to get here," said Ginny.

"Shhh!" whispered Hermione. "People might hear! We cannot be discovered!"

"Why not?" asked Ginny. "Someone here could help us! Or we could steal into the Department of Mysteries and nick one of the Time Turners, they'll still be here in 1978 won't they? When were they invented? Go back, replace it, job done."

"You can't," Hermione hissed. Sirius turned another page of the newspaper. The articles in this were all depressing. All death, war, destruction, and politics. He saw the mention of Lucius Malfoy's name, which was never a good sign.

"If we change anything at all we could change how things are in our time, seriously! We could stop people we know being born, or influence what they do, or almost anything! Kill people!"

"It isn't killing if they were never here in the first place, not philosophically" said the blonde, "although you're right that it isn't the outcome we would want in most cases."

"If I said that, it would be threatening," said Ginny. "You say it, and it's fine. Hermione, Harry said when you and him went back to save Sirius, everything happened because you'd already done it." Sirius' ears pricked up at the mention of his own name. Ginny had her hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans and was looking at Hermione with a challenging look on her face.

"That was a simplistic interpretation of one scenario! Harry doesn't understand time theory, and why should he? It's far more complicated than that, oh, I can't explain it all here! We need to get out of the Ministry, quickly, we look out of place enough already!"

"Fine," said Ginny, crossing her arms. "But if you don't get me back in time for the Cup and the wedding, I'm holding you personally responsible. And, I'll tell Mum it was your fault."

"Time is a many-layered complexity," said the blonde.

Sirius didn't know if that was supposed to make sense. It definitely didn't seem to help.

He waited for the three women to get to the exit of the lift area, and out into the main Atrium, before he folded up his paper and followed. He thought about transforming into a dog, but it was likely Padfoot would be chased out of the Ministry faster than Sirius Black. And his spacial awareness was shit as a dog.

They were walking towards one of the exits, Hermione and Ginny close together and the blonde girl slightly further away. She was staring round at the Ministry workers and the huge room, while the other two continued in their conversation in terse whispers.

It was an impressive room, if you hadn't seen it before. Sirius had, and was a bit over it by now. It was ten or so men in height, curved at the top and panelled with huge black tiles which reflected the light. The fountain was offensive, but all the shiny marble was still quite alluring. And all the wizards. So many wizards, most wearing uniform but some wearing some quite eye-catching get-ups.

The small group had stopped by a Floo point. Sirius walked up to the next one, and pretended to consult his watch. He didn't have a watch. Hadn't, since he'd been to sentenced to Azkaban, and the one James' parents had given him for his seventeenth birthday had been removed on his imprisonment. He listened in instead.

"We could go to The Burrow," said Ginny. "Mum and Dad would keep the secret."

"They can't know!" said Hermione. "One thing, will change everything!"

"So you say," said Ginny. "Leaky Cauldron, under fake names? I've got some coins in my pocket, enough for a couple of nights at least."

"Alright," said Hermione. She threw a handful of Floo powder into the flames. "The Leaky Cauldron!" In a gust of green flames, she was gone. Her companions followed her.

Again, Sirius had nothing better to do than remain with his fellow time travellers. He'd been planning on going to the Leaky himself, anyhow. He gave it a minute, or as close to as he could manage without a watch, and followed.

He arrived at a Leaky Cauldron that looked much as it ever had done. Sirius had always had the impression that this bar, along with the Hogs Head in Hogsmeade, didn't change much. It was as it was, and that was that. Tom was the barman, and had always been the barman, and would likely always be the barman. The barmaids changed, more frequently than the menu.

The three women were at the bar, presumably negotiating a room for the night. He slipped to the other end of it, although in listening range, and ordered a pint of mulled mead from the barmaid. It was lucky there were coins in his pocket. It was almost like Death had provided him with the things he would need.

He levered himself onto a red leather barstool. It was less worn than the last time he'd been through here.

The bar was very quiet, the war most likely keeping people home. The only others in there were pairs or single wizards, no witches, with small collections of shopping. Sirius remembered this time period. Very few people left the house alone, and even fewer for no reason. Quite a few of the people here looked incredibly dodgy.

"We're near to empty, you can have as many rooms as you like, girlies," Tom the barman was saying to Hermione and her friends. "Will you be taking one large one, or three? I'll charge the same either way, not like I'd as be letting the others tonight in this climate."

"One large one, please," said Hermione, looking to her friends for confirmation. Ginny nodded, while the blonde stared down the bar at Sirius. He looked away, down into his pint. He doubted she'd suspect anything. Men looked at women in bars all the time, and she wasn't unattractive.

"Two Sickles," said Tom, to the women.

"For two nights, please," added Hermione, prompted by Ginny. "And three meals, whatever you've got, and three Butterbeers."

"Seven Sickles, two Knuts," said Tom, totting up the items on a jotter by the till. "I'll have your meals and drinks in ten." He bustled off into the back with his jotter pad, shouting to someone else in there.

"What do we do now?" Ginny asked.

"Get some food, is a good place to start," said Hermione, "and then…"

"I think we need to ask that man over there why he has followed us from the Ministry," said the blonde woman, pointing directly at Sirius.

Fuck. He should have got his paper back out.


	4. Chapter 4: Coincidence

**Chapter Four: Coincidence**

 _Hermione_

 _July 1978, the Leaky Cauldron, London_

"Luna!"

"What? He's been looking at us for a very long time. Had you not noticed? He was quite clearly not reading the paper and only pretending to, at the Ministry. I thought you would have seen him by now."

"We can't talk to him! We'd affect the timeline!"

"Unless we've always been here, when this was the past, and our future was still as it is, and we're supposed to talk to him because that's what we did in this time period when we were here before," said Ginny. "If you understood that. I don't know if I did. Time is confusing." She paused. "I just want to go home," she said, in a slightly strangled voice.

Hermione wanted to snap back at Ginny that of course they hadn't. They weren't supposed to be here! Then, she realised that she couldn't rule that out.

This was not how she had pictured the rest of this afternoon. She was going to have dropped the box off by now, safely, and would have written most of her report on it for Kingsley. If she was lucky, she could have then started on the draft legislation about werewolves, before sitting in on the meeting with the Russian ambassador at 6pm.

Instead, she was in a bar in 1978 trying to avoid creating a temporal disaster.

She just wanted to go home, too.

Not for the first time, Hermione Granger thought her life would likely have been far simpler had she remained firmly in the Muggle world.

"Okay," she said to Luna. "Ginny wants to talk to him. I don't. What do you think?" Luna was taking a sip of her Butterbeer, which had just arrived.

"I'm not sure that what I think matters," said Luna. "I think he may be making the decision for us, which is just as much his right as ours."

He was sat on the bar stool right next to hers. Bloody hell, when had he got there? Why hadn't she noticed?

Looking directly at the man for the first time, she realised it was none other than Sirius Black.

Well, Hermione had known he existed in 1978, of course. She hadn't thought he'd be here. Whatever the chances were of that, they weren't high.

But it was fine. Sirius didn't know them yet. He would ignore them. Or, possibly, from the stories she'd been told about his youth, try to flirt with them.

What if their interaction with him changed something? What if ignoring him changed something?

"Ginny, do you recognise him?" asked Hermione in a whisper.

"It's Sirius," she replied. "Isn't it?" Well, that ruled out that Hermione was hallucinating it all.

Unless she was hallucinating Ginny's answer. Today, she wasn't going to rule much out.

"He has a very large infestation of Nargles," said Luna.

Well, Hermione could rule that out.

What if he was a disguised Death Eater? She felt for her wand, hidden in the pocket of her robes. No, that was stupid. No Death Eater in 1978 would know who she was to attack, because she didn't exist, and they definitely wouldn't know to impersonate Sirius because there was no connection between them yet.

She kept hold of her wand, just in case. Luna thought he'd been behind them since the Ministry. That had almost certainly been coincidence, but she wasn't taking chances.

Another member of the Black family, maybe? They might practically all be dead by 2002, but there would be, had been, a quite few here.

Before Hermione could come up with a plan, the man who was almost certainly Sirius spoke.

"Hello, Hermione."

Hermione nearly fell off her barstool, and in righting herself slopped a large amount of her Butterbeer down herself.

"How do you know who I am?" she hissed, trying to keep her voice down but also to inject a certain amount of 'don't you dare mess with me' into it.

"Well, you know who I am, of course?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" she muttered.

"Everything," said Sirius. "And that's Ginny Weasley over there. And I'm afraid I don't know who you are," he said to Luna. "Sirius Black, pleased to meet you."

"Luna Lovegood," said Luna, outstretching her hand which Sirius happily shook. "I've always been a fan of the Hobgoblins."

"Hobgoblins?" asked Sirius, looking puzzled. Hermione suppressed a smile. Even if she seemed to be on the back foot with this version of Sirius Black, at least Luna was able to wrong-foot him.

The whole interaction was going terribly. She had no idea how he knew who she was, and who Ginny was, and what they'd done so wrong as to be able to be found out already. He was practically flirting with them all.

She probably should have expected that. Every story Remus or Sirius himself had even told her about the younger Sirius had described an annoying, overconfident, irreverent man who enjoying flirting with women and winding people up. This was exactly that man.

She cursed herself for being stupid. Maybe she should have done as Ron had encouraged and become an Auror, or at least done something else practical. A few years of a desk job, and she was already soft and unable to cope with a real, proper crisis. She actually could have used Ron, right now. Or Harry.

Harry. Ron would just be profoundly irritating at this point, and she vividly remembered telling him she wasn't going to speak to him until he made up his mind about their relationship once and for all.

Luna was explaining to Sirius that he was the Hobgoblins' lead singer. Sirius looked baffled.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"Sirius? If you know who we are, tell me where we first met."

"In chronological order, in terms of the greater timeline of the wizarding world, now."

"You heard me talking to my friends, and thought you'd try and flirt with me by knowing our names."

"If I'm flirting with anyone, poppet, it's the blonde one. Luna, was it?"

It was at that point that their food arrived. A standard meat-and-two-veg dish, with mashed potato and some rather thin gravy. All presented on a brown earthenware plate with what looked like a very small amount of care by whoever did these meals. It tasted decent.

She felt better, anyway. Sirius had clearly been listening into them, and had picked up her name from that. She couldn't remember her name being used in the conversation, and they'd definitely used fake names when they'd signed in the book for their room keys. She'd chosen Jean Henderson, her middle name and her mother's maiden name.

And it absolutely fitted with the personality of the Sirius in this time period, a trick like that.

Besides, how could it have been the Sirius from theirs? He was dead, and before that he'd been in Grimmauld Place with Order members popping in and out. There was a period between when they'd met him, in the Shrieking Shack, to when he'd gone to Grimmauld Place where he was less accounted fore, but really how likely was it that he would have time travelled.

Every single time travelling story Hermione had ever read, and when she'd had the Time Turner she'd read quite a few, there was only ever one time-traveller. There was never two from different time periods colliding. The chances were miniscule.

Her dad had often said that it was more likely to be a cock-up than a conspiracy. True, this was when dealing with his brother, who assumed the government was out to get him and took every news story as proof of that, but it made sense to Hermione.

To be on the safe side, she wanted to go up to their room after they'd eaten.

Sirius was still sat there, in discussion with Ginny now. Luna was eating slowly, a carrot speared on her fork halfway to her mouth as she watched two very unusual looking wizards arguing about something that sounded distinctly illegal. Sirius and Ginny were talking about the weather. That was harmless enough.

Hermione suddenly remembered something. Luna had said he'd followed them from the Ministry.

"Sirius?"

"Yes?"

"Do you work at the Ministry of Magic? I thought I saw you there this afternoon? I was there for…"

"A job interview," finished Ginny, as Hermione floundered slightly.

"Which Department?"

"International Magical Cooperation," said Hermione, thinking of the one Sirius Black was least likely to have any dealings with.

"Good luck," he said.

"You haven't answered the question," Ginny pointed out.

"No, I don't work there. I was registering a Crup," he said, smoothly. Too smoothly, perhaps.

"Where's the Crup?" asked Ginny, one eyebrow raised.

"Oh, I sent it on home," said Sirius. "Got a mate who's breeding them, so he took it for me. Seven, he had, in one litter. Noise is something else. And he's got another one due pups in the next week, so I'm taking one off his hands as a favour, really."

"Oh."

It was all perfectly plausible. And Hermione still had her doubts. There was something that was not quite right.

"How come you're here?"

"Fancied a drink." He indicated his pint, which was almost finished. "Can I buy you ladies one?"

"Of course," said Ginny. "I'll take a Gillywater. Hermione likes anything fruity. Luna… get her a Butterbeer."

While Sirius was trying to catch the barmaid's attention, Hermione glared at Ginny.

"What are you doing?"

"Being friendly! Getting a free drink! Look, in our time I'm engaged to the most famous person in wizarding Britain, and have been pretty much since leaving school. I've never been bought a drink by a man before!"

"Is this some kind of pre-wedding crisis?"

"Fuck, no! I love Harry, and I've already threatened you if you don't get me back in time for the wedding. But I just wanted to see what it was like to be flirted with in a bar."

"So you picked your fiancé's godfather."

"We don't have much gold with us. If you want to be able to eat breakfast, it's this drink or no drink."

"Ginny is a free woman, in the eyes of the law," said Luna, and went back to her people watching.

Hermione sighed. Of all the people she could have gone back in time with, she would not have chosen Luna. And Ginny… well, Hermione had learnt a long time ago that the people you liked most were not always the same as the people that would be of most use, and easiest to cope with, in a stressful situation.

She wanted to spend the rest of her life with Ronald Weasley, but she wouldn't always pick him in an emergency.

This whole thing was becoming more of a mess with every passing second.

Sirius was back, with an armful of drinks.

"Cheers," he said, passing them out, and clinking glasses with Hermione.

"Cheers," said Hermione, less enthusiastically.

As she took a sip of her drink, she noticed the thing that was wrong about all of this.

Sirius Black should have been eighteen or nineteen in 1978. She realised to her shame that she'd never asked when Sirius' birthday was. But, anyway. This Sirius was clearly older than that. He was thirty at least, which meant he was a post-Azkaban Sirius. He was at least thirty-three or thirty-four. Thirty five?

"Did you go to Hogwarts?" she asked him. "I don't remember you."

"Everyone remembers me," said Sirius.

He was avoiding answering the question again.

She leant in, and whispered in his ear. She had a sudden urge to resolve the situation once and for all, which she thought was perhaps unwise.

"The real Sirius Black is eighteen, and should be at school. Who are you, or do I need to contact the Headmaster?"

"Fuck," said the fake Sirius Black, or time-travelled Sirius Black, or bunking off school Sirius Black, Sirius Black's renegade uncle, or whoever the hell this was. "Where do we go from here?"

"How about, you tell me exactly who you are, how you know me, and what you want from me?" she said, attempting to sound as cocky as he had earlier in the conversation while she hid the slight tremor in her hand. "I think you'd better come up to my room."

"I thought you'd never ask," he said, his grin as confident as ever. He had a shake to his hand, too, she noticed, as he picked up his pint. She signalled to Ginny and Luna to follow them.

Room Eight had been made ready for them, and the four walked up to it in silence. Hermione turned the key in the lock, putting her hand into the pocket of her robes as she did so. The little black box was still there, and still firmly shut. She'd taken Ginny's advice and used several strong locking spells to keep it shut, this time.

The room was large enough, although the third bed was clearly not usually there. It was stuck in at an angle to the others, making the path across the room to the bathroom not that simple. It was simple, and clean, with a truly awful patterned carpet, and it would do them perfectly well.

Hermione balanced her drink on the bedside cabinet of the nearest bed, and sat on the edge of it. On the next bed along, Ginny did the same. Luna placed herself on the floor underneath the window.

Sirius remained standing by the door, arms crossed and leaning against a bare piece of wall. His black hair hung just past his ears, badly in need of a wash. One boot was on the floor, the other against the wall.

"So," he said.

Hermione pointed her wand at him. Behind her, Ginny sighed.

"Tell me where you met me for the first time, or I'll assume you're a Death Eater," she said.

"In the Shrieking Shack, at Hogwarts," said Sirius, evenly. "Harry threatened to kill me. You accused Remus of being a werewolf, which was of course true. Then you saved me with a Hippogriff and a Time Turner."

Hermione lowered her wand.

"Of course," Sirius continued, "a good imposter would know where we met."

"What did you say to me and Remus in the drawing room at Grimmauld Place, the night Harry got attacked by Dementors at his aunt and uncles?"

"Dumbledore should have trusted me with Harry. I would have stepped up better than those Muggles."

"It's the real Sirius," said Hermione.

"But are you the real Hermione? What did you say to my mother, the first time you met her portrait?"

"That she was a sour old bitch."

"Not wrong there," muttered Ginny. "It explains a lot about the Black family, that portrait."

"My mother is alive in this year," said Sirius. "Forget being afraid of whether I'm a Death Eater in disguise, and focus on being afraid of her."

"I'll do you a deal," said Hermione, as confidently as she could. "You tell us the truth, we'll tell you it."

"What happened to, we can't tell anyone we're here?" interrupted Ginny.

"Given he shouldn't be either, I think we're safe." said Hermione.

"Fine," said Sirius. "You first."

"No, you," said Ginny. "Catch me up to where you and Hermione are, at least. I'm fed up of being the last to know anything, as usual."

"The signs are always around you as to the truth, if you are willing to try to see," said Luna. Ginny ignored her.

"Fine," said Sirius again. "Where shall I start."

"The beginning works."

"I was born on the third of November, 1959, to Orion and Walburga Black. I'm the third of my name in the family, named after…"

"The beginning of the bit where you ended up here," said Hermione. She couldn't remember if the version of Sirius Black she'd known had been this avoidant and obstinate, but she wasn't going to sit around forever waiting for him to spit out an answer. "You're not the Sirius Black from 1978, you're from at least the summer of 1995."

"1996. I was in Death. You three were there, weren't you? Harry led you into the Department of Mysteries, and you put up a good fight against the Death Eaters, and the Order came to help you out. I didn't fancy staying behind, although strictly speaking Dumbledore still had me under house arrest. You three were injured by the time I arrived, so I don't think you saw the fight, but my dear cousin Bellatrix was desperate to get to me. She succeeded. I went through The Veil, a historic and secretive portal to Death."

Hermione nodded. They knew all this had happened. It was verifiable, given the number of eyewitnesses.

"Harry told us that much," said Ginny.

"Harry survived that day?"

"You don't know?" asked Hermione.

"I was in Death. I don't know anything from after that. Is Harry alive?"

"We can't tell you what happens in the future."

"She basically just did!" Sirius pointed at Ginny, who shrugged.

"What harm is it?" she asked.

Hermione wanted to explain exactly what harm it was all over again to Ginny. Well, she didn't. Needed to, was a better way of saying it. Right now, though, there was a more glaring issue.

"You say, 'in Death', not 'dead'," she said to Sirius. "And you're here, after that."

Ginny frowned. Luna looked up from her drink.

"You're a smart one," said Sirius. "I was in Death. I didn't die."

"That's not possible," said Luna, flatly.

"I assure you it is," said Sirius. "What was it James said? I'm not technically dead. I fell into Death, and as such, I got kicked out and sent on here."

"James? Here? You don't die for eighteen years. Why are you here?" Hermione asked.

"We should have started with our story," said Ginny. "At least ours makes sense."

"Apparently, you can't go back to where you fell into Death, in order to keep the integrity of the Veil intact. Otherwise, people would be falling in on purpose for dares or to talk to long lost family."

Hermione snorted. Nobody would be that stupid. Would they?

They would. Fred and George would do it for a dare. Harry would want to speak to his parents. The Unspeakables would want to research Death more thoroughly.

"Okay," she said. "But why here?"

"Not allowed into the future," said Sirius. "Now, your turn. I think it's only fair now that I understand how you got here, and why." He looked at her, and Hermione knew there was no use in arguing with him.

She wanted to. There was a lot more to his story than he was saying, which was obvious from all the holes in it. Ginny was right. None of it made sense, and he was hiding something. You couldn't just come back from the dead, and time travel as part of it. Luna was also right. It wasn't possible.

She had promised to tell her story, though, and she would.

"In the time we came from," she began, carefully, "after your death, or whatever it was, I worked in the Ministry of Magic. Will work there. I had an item from the Department of Mysteries, which I was looking at for the Minister of Magic. Luna and Ginny were with me, and it fell open in the Atrium of the Ministry. We touched it, and were transported back here."

Her story had almost as many gaps left in it as his did.

"And what time was that?" asked Sirius.

"2002," answered Ginny, before Hermione could prevent her. Hermione shot Ginny a look, which was supposed to say 'stop talking, we're giving him too much information', but judging from Ginny's eyebrow raise in response, it didn't.

"Harry? Remus?" Sirius asked. For the first time in the conversation he looked truly animated. He had stopped leaning on the wall, and had taken a couple of steps forward towards Hermione.

"I can't say," she said, cautiously.

"Fucking hell," he said, and threw his pint glass to the floor.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Like hell you are," he replied, flopping back against the wall. He slid to the floor, and placed his head in his hands. "You're just following the rules, without a care for how I feel."

"I care!" she said.

"Hermione, why can't we tell him?" Ginny asked. "Look at him. It's just pointlessly cruel to withhold the information! What can he possibly do?"

"He could try and change what happens to them!"

"So they're both dead," Sirius muttered.

"No! Shit!" said Hermione. This was not going how she had planned. She should have left Sirius down in the bar. They hadn't been careful, and now everything was going to change.

"One of them is dead," Sirius said, looking up at her. "Which one?"

"Remus," said Ginny, firmly. "And Hermione, I don't care. He's not going to do anything, are you Sirius?"

"Remus died," said Sirius, with little emotion in his voice. "Remus is dead."

"Death may not mean anything any more," said Luna. "With you, here, and us, here. How do we know we are not all dead?"

Luna had a point. Hermione pushed that thought to the back of her brain. She was almost certain she was alive, and right now she had no time to be getting stuck in questions about whether she was dead or alive. If this was life, she needed to get everything back on track. If it was death, well, she could deal with that later.

"We're not," said Sirius. "Fucking hell, Remus. I loved that man."

"He died bravely," said Ginny. "With…"

"Shut up!" Hermione shouted. "This is all going so badly wrong!"

"You're telling me," said Ginny. "Miss I-didn't-think-to-lock-a-dangerous-box."

"We could all be dead," said Luna, again.

"Fucking shit wankery," said Sirius. "My last best mate died."

They fell into silence. Hermione finished the last of her drink. It was far too sugary.

Ginny lay back on the bed, feet towards the pillow, and kicked the headboard. Luna stared at the ceiling. Sirius had his head back in his hands, and was making muffled noises.

Hermione did not know how to solve this, or even how to begin. Fix the box, she supposed.

Work out what to do with Sirius. She knew there was more to his story. Why was he here now, and not some other time?

Why were they here now?

She would need to sort all of this out, somehow, and get Ginny back for her wedding, without influencing anything and changing the future.

If it all went wrong, there was a distant possibility there would be no wedding.

She wanted Ron. He wouldn't know what to do, either, but he'd give her a hug. She needed one.

If it all went really wrong, there would be no Ron.


	5. Chapter 5: Sanctuary

**Chapter 5: Sanctuary**

 _Sirius_

 _June 1978, the Leaky Cauldron, London_

Remus had died.

It almost wasn't a surprise. Sirius could understand it was possible. The man had spent the six months before Sirius had gone through the Veil effectively trying to kill himself. He'd sorted himself out a little bit, when Sirius had spoken to him, but Sirius was sure the self-destructive tendencies would have come back out with Sirius gone.

That wasn't being arrogant. Not really. Remus fell apart at the tiniest thing. Which of his many self-destruction methods it had been, Sirius wouldn't want to guess. The man had many. So, one of them had killed him, or more likely a Death Eater.

But fucking hell, Remus was dead. Would be dead. Had not survived.

Remus was supposed to live a long and happy life, finally work out that he should get with Tonks, and get over his issues.

Okay, that was highly unlikely ever to have happened.

He would probably have spent another few decades moping around Yorkshire, drinking and sticking himself into dangerous situations, which was essentially what he'd spent over ten years doing between the two wars. Sirius had always had a mental image of Remus high on a moor, battered by the wind and rain in a threadbare cloak, knocking back the Firewhisky while composing maudlin poems. The worst part was it probably wasn't too far from the truth of that decade.

Besides, Sirius thought, the point is not that Remus is dead. He could change that. The point was that Hermione Granger was being an absolute arsehole and he needed to get rid of her as soon as practically possible. Preferably without alerting her to what he was up to. She was already so fucking neurotic about changing the future that he very much doubted she was going to be at all interested in helping him plot.

Bloody hell, he was going to cry about Remus.

The man deserved so much more than what he'd had.

 _Pull yourself together,_ he said to himself, in his best McGonagall voice.

Hermione and Ginny had relocated to the bathroom. He could hear them in there, arguing, although not exactly what they were saying. He was, however, sure he'd heard his own name once or twice. Sirius considered transforming. His hearing was so much better as a dog.

"Sirius?"

The blonde one, who was probably called Luna, was talking to him.

"Yes?'

"Was Remus Lupin a very good friend of yours?"

"The best."

"I'm sorry for your loss. I know it is painful. He did die very bravely, if that is a consolation. He was very brave man. I never called him a friend, but I would have liked to have."

"Thank you, Luna." Sirius' voice seemed to have choked up a little bit. He pushed at the tears on his cheek with the back of his hand. "He was indeed a very brave man."

"He was awarded the Order of Merlin. First Class."

"No less than he deserved." Sirius could barely get the words out.

"Would you like a hug?"

"No, I'm…"

"You're not fine," she said, and wrapped her arms around him.

The hug was warm, and did seem to stem the flow of tears.

"I don't believe you were dead, though," she said. There was a small wet patch forming on her shoulder, the one where Sirius' face was.

"In Death," Sirius corrected, although the semantics seemed unimportant. Remus wasn't going to get the second chance he had. How many people did?

He was going to need to make this count.

"Words do matter," Luna said. "But in this case I think it's most likely to have been a near-death experience. My mother died. People cannot come back from the dead."

"I wasn't dead," said Sirius.

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE ABOUT YOUR PROBATION PERIOD! THIS IS THE WORLD CUP WE ARE TALKING ABOUT!"

"I think Ginny is a little bit angry," said Luna.

This girl was the master of stating the obvious. Sirius could have worked that one out for himself, and many, many people had told him he lacked emotional depth.

He was fucking crying real tears about someone's death that hadn't happened yet. How was that for emotional depth, eh?

"AND MY FUCKING WEDDING! MUM IS GOING TO KILL ME!"

"I think you can tell whose daughter she is," said Sirius. Luna laughed.

"I used to go to Ginny's house to play sometimes as a child," Luna said. "We lived near the same village. Mrs Weasley made me laugh."

That's not the reaction Sirius had ever had to one of Molly's famous rants.

"HARRY IS GOING TO PANIC! HIS BRIDE HAS DISAPPEARED!"

So Ginny was marrying Harry. He liked that.

Someone had a happy ending. He'd have to make sure that didn't change for him.

There was a slam of the bathroom door as it flew open and hit the wall, and Ginny Weasley flounced through it and threw herself onto the closest bed.

"Fucking hell!" she shouted at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry!" shouted Hermione from the bathroom, as the door slammed shut.

There was a knocking at the bedroom door. Sirius, who was still hugging Luna, he'd forgotten about that, pulled himself away and went to open it. There really was such a large wet patch on her shoulder.

"Can you please keep the noise down!" raged an angry wizard wearing a long, lilac striped nightgown with matching cap. The cap had a purple tassel. "Some of us are trying to rest!"

"It's…" Sirius consulted the clock. "Seven o'clock, not even."

"Keep it down!" shouted the wizard, and stomped off.

"We must look like an interesting group," observed Luna from the floor.

A tearstained bloke in head-to-toe black, a girl with flowery hair and golden robes, Ginny on the bed kicking the headboard again, and muffled sobbing from the bathroom. Yeah, once again Luna was stating the absolute obvious.

Sirius wondered if this was something she always did.

Luna, that was, not Hermione or Ginny.

"I'm going to see if Hermione is alright," said Luna, and floated off to the bathroom. Sirius shut the door, and trod on the remains of his glass of mead. Reluctantly, he began to charm the pieces of glass out of the carpet.

On looking at the carpet more closely, which he didn't make a point of doing but was having to in order to check for small pieces of glass, he realised that it was the same room he'd once stayed in with Peter, Remus and James. He'd puked on this carpet.

That was not a good memory.

"Hey, Sirius."

Ginny was upright on the bed, now, and the rhythmic banging had stopped.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Picking glass out of the carpet."

"No, here. 1978."

"My guess is as good as yours."

"Okay. Hermione thinks… oh, that doesn't matter. I think I need to sleep on all of this and hopefully in the morning I'll wake up, the favours will be back to blue or whatever they were meant to be in the first place, and Mum will only be cross because I've overslept for the bridesmaid dress fittings."

"Wedding planning can easily cause nightmares."

"What would you know?"

"Trust me."

"If this isn't a nightmare, we might not have much choice."

There was silence. Sirius thought he had all the glass now. There was no bin in the room. It was probably in the bathroom, and he wasn't going in there.

"Ginny, I'm going down to the bar to find a bin."

"I'll come."

They walked down the stairs in silence, Sirius holding his handful of broken glass. He had cut himself slightly, and there was blood trailing onto his wrist.

"Tom? Got a broken one," Sirius said, on reaching the bar.

"Fifth tonight," grumbled Tom. "Going to start charging."

"Firewhisky, please," said Sirius, who'd heard the barman say that before. "Ginny?"

"Same."

They drank, neither of them saying a word.

"Look," said Ginny, after half an hour. "Hermione's going to kill me if I let you wander off. Can you stay with us tonight?"

"Okay," said Sirius, as he had nowhere else to go.

"And, until the morning, I'm just going to keep pretending this is a nightmare," she said.

"Spent twelve years trying that one," said Sirius.

The sun rose through the rather thin curtains, and so did Sirius. He'd slept on the floor, insisting the girls had a bed each. Hermione hadn't come out of the bathroom until everyone else was lying down.

He threw off the crocheted blanket he'd used as a cover, and wandered into the bathroom to relieve himself.

"Gryffindors have chivalry, they're strong and never waver," he muttered, "in times of need you'd be hard pressed to find someone braver."

It wasn't the strongest rhyme the Sorting Hat had come up with, but it was the first one Sirius had heard, and it had stuck with him.

He needed a plan.

Loathe as he was to leave them, in a way, Sirius probably needed to be shot of these girls. Hermione was not going to approve, Luna appeared to think they were all dead, and Ginny was probably very useful but far too angry at this present moment. Hardly his dream team.

He'd have picked Remus, James and Tonks, if he'd had free choice.

However, he was on his own.

Well, first, Gringotts. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub. He reckoned getting money out would be no trouble. Then, somewhere to stay. He could maybe go to his old place, for a couple of weeks until Hogwarts let out and 1978 Sirius would be there. That would buy him time for somewhere more stable.

It would be in a mess, and 1978 Sirius was shit with gold, so he wouldn't be detected.

Also, clothes. He stank, and having a bath would be pointless until he had fresh clothes to put on after it.

There was a hammering on the door.

"Whoever is in there needs to get out now!"

"Breakfast?" he asked the room, as he was hurried out of the bathroom by Ginny.

"Luna's still asleep," said Hermione, sat up on the bed where she had slept with pieces of parchment scattered around her. "I'd like some."

"I'll get some brought up," said Sirius, disappearing down to the bar.

Aftewards, he was ready to take his leave.

"Well, I'll be off," he said. "I paid for breakfast."

"Ah, he thinks he's going to get away with that," said Ginny, chewing on the last of her toast.

"Goodbye," said Sirius, ignoring her. "Good luck in getting back to your future."

He turned to go, but his hand connected with Hermione's arm rather than with the cool metal of the doorknob.

"No."

"Yeah, what's with the no?"

"You can't go."

"Can. Will."

"We know nothing about this time period, except for a few bits about the war. We have nowhere to go, and no money. Can you at least point us in the right direction?"

That wasn't what he'd expected.

"I'm going to Gringotts," he said, slowly, to buy himself some time. "You can come, if you want, but it won't be exciting. I've got a place we can stay in for about two weeks."

"Thank you!" she said, hugging him.

He untangled himself from her arms.

"Get ready to go. I want to get there before it's too busy in case someone recognises me and thinks I shouldn't be there. Sirius Black is supposed to be sitting his NEWTs."

It was only a few minutes after the opening time when they arrived at the bank. Sirius walked in, as confident as he could, the others trailing in his wake. They'd had a lengthy discussion about disguises, as he'd leant out of the window and looked for people he recognised coming into the alley, but nobody would know who they were here. They were relying on looking ordinary, which Luna most certainly did not.

"Sirius Black, here to access my vault," he said, to the goblin at the desk.

"Identification," said the goblin, looking at him with some distaste.

"The vault will recognise me," Sirius said, with every bit of offhand pureblood arrogance he possessed. "I'm going to need some money bags, too."

"Indeed," said the goblin, and summoned another to take him down into Gringotts. He signalled to the others to wait for him.

Emerging into the sunshine again, he handed Hermione the smallest of the three bags of money in the pocket of his jeans.

"Here," he said. "You'll want clothes." They were all wearing the same things they'd worn yesterday, and slept in. He thought they'd find it useful.

"Where can we go?" asked Ginny. "I don't know where anything is in this Diagon Alley, except for Madam Malkin's, which is where we left it."

"You want Dendling's," said Sirius. "This way."

A few doors down from Gringotts, Sirius pushed open the pink door to a slightly ramshackle shopfront. The windows were dotted with Muggle contraptions, including a washing machine that was plugged into nothing and a battered children's ride-on car.

"Best purveyor of Muggle clothing and curiosities in the wizarding world," said Sirius, ushering them in. "It's better than it looks. Purchased all sorts here, to annoy my parents. The owner and your dad would have got on," he said to Ginny.

"Why have I never seen this?" asked Ginny, staring around in amazement. One side of the shop was dedicated to a wide variety of Muggle items, most of which looked secondhand. The other was for clothing, which thankfully did look new. There was a small area at the back for books and magazines, most of the classics, romances, and a section on fantasy and Muggle representations of magic.

Luna was examining a vegetable peeler with great interest.

"What do you reckon Voldemort thought of it, and the people who run it?" Sirius asked, ensuring nobody was around to hear that.

"Oh," she said. "Yeah." She wandered off to look at the books.

Hermione was already in the clothes rails when Sirius made his way over to them. He needed t-shirts, and a pair of trousers. Socks, and pants. That would do. He grabbed socks and pants almost at random, taking a little more time over the trousers to find ones in the right size. T-shirts were more of a decision.

"This was a good idea," said Hermione. "Thank you."

"No problem," he said. "What do you think?" He held up a three-piece suit, cut from some kind of shiny silver fabric, for her inspection.

"I wouldn't," she said.

"Ah, why not?" he asked, but put it back on the rails anyway.

"This is all very…" she said, looking at him from in amongst the women's section.

"Dated? 1970s? You're in the 1970s, baby," he said. "Look." He rifled through and found a top that wasn't too offensive to the eyes of a girl who wasn't from this era. "Try this." It was gold and shiny, but at least it was in a shape she might recognise.

"Really?" she asked, holding it up to herself.

"All the Muggles are wearing it. Otherwise it's this," he said, showing her a pair of shimmering blue shorts and a thin piece of stretchy pink fabric.

"I'm not wearing a boob tube!" she shrieked, causing Ginny to almost drop the book she was reading.

"Is that what it is?" Sirius mused, poking at the pink fabric some more. "I thought it was a belt."

"My mum had one," Hermione said. "I've seen the photographs. Please put it back."

They paid for their purchases, including Ginny's, and left to head back onto the streets of Diagon Alley. Luna had decided she would feel more comfortable in robes, so they made a stop for those and for pyjamas, which weren't stocked by Dendling's. Hermione revealed she had never purchased pyjamas in the wizarding world before.

Can take the Muggleborn away from the Muggles, Sirius thought, but you can't fully take the Muggle traits out of them.

"Okay," said Sirius, back by the Floo in the Leaky Cauldron. It was early afternoon, and everyone finally had what they needed to go to ground for a couple of weeks. Travelling in a group took forever. "You need to ask for 'The Crossing', nice and clear now because 'The Dossing' is somewhere completely different and not at all nice."

"The Crossing," repeated Hermione, and stepped into the grate first.

Sirius wondered if perhaps he should have gone first.

He arrived to Hermione, Ginny and Luna picking themselves up off the rug, surrounded by the mess of eighteen-year-old Sirius. There was barely enough floor space for Sirius to stand on, if he was honest, and he should probably move some it if anyone wanted to be able to get to the bathroom.

"Welcome to my house," he said, gesturing with his arms. "Just let me tidy a spot."

He waved his wand until some of the mess moved back up against the walls or into open cupboards.

"Has someone raided you?" asked Ginny, in amazement.

"Sad to say, this is all entirely my fault," said Sirius. "Brew, anyone?"

"I don't even know where your kitchen is, in all of this," said Hermione, shaking her head.

'Don't worry," said Sirius. "I've got a system. _Accio teapot!"_

"Is that how you find everything?" asked Ginny.

"Yes," said Sirius. He wasn't sure why that was being asked in quite such a judgemental tone. He'd been to The Burrow, a couple of times. He'd watched Molly Weasley find things in much the same way.

He disappeared through the door to the kitchen, and thought he could hear muttering about him as the door shut behind him. Well, let them bitch about his housekeeping standards. He'd be shot of them soon enough.

"Tea," he said, reentering the room with a tray of tea levitating ahead of him. "Biscuit? I would have bought these round about Christmas time in '77, if that affects anyone's answer."

Luna and Ginny took one. Hermione did not.

Sirius banished the worst of the stuff from the sofa to what he liked to call the junkyard, which was the loft, and indicated to everyone to sit down. He took the armchair, covered in red with golden trim. A school trunk served as a coffee table.

"Sirius," said Ginny. "The trunk says 'Peter Pettigrew on it."

"Yeah, borrowed that in my sixth year of Hogwarts," said Sirius, kicking back and putting his feet up on the trunk. "My brother and some of his mates smashed up mine, as it had the Black family crest on it and they said I didn't deserve it. Borrowed Peter's spare. Was too disorganised to return it."

"I don't picture you as disorganised," said Ginny, with a smile. She tucked her legs up underneath her on the sofa, and leant on the slightly stained arm. "Nice banner."

"House pride," said Sirius. That had all seemed very important when he'd moved in here at seventeen.

"I like it," said Luna. "Is that you?" She was holding a picture, of a teenaged waving a Gryffindor banner alongside two others.

Sirius went to look at it.

"Yeah," he said, and carefully removed the photograph from the frame. "That's me, holding up one end. We were cheering on James his first match as Quidditch captain. I can't remember who took it. And there's Remus, look." He pointed at the man in the middle, with short brown hair and a slightly stretched look.

Before saying anything else, he carefully ripped the third man out of the picture and threw it into the fireplace. It would have had a more dramatic effect if the fire had not already gone out, he thought.

" _Incendio!"_ he grumbled, and the section of the picture caught fire.

Sirius was replacing the rest of the photograph into its frame when Luna spoke.

"Who was he?"

"Peter fucking Pettigrew. If you don't know what he did, I suggest you ask one of these two. I'm going to look for food, see if we can eat later."

He stomped off into the kitchen, once again not listening to the conversation he left behind him.

Sirius had expressed regret, when talking to James, that he'd chased Peter down and not stuck with Harry on that Halloween night. That was slightly wrong. It wasn't the chasing down he regretted so much as being caught. The idea was to catch Peter and come back for Harry, not a twelve-year detour into Azkaban.

He should have killed him in the Shrieking Shack, but he'd listened to Harry which had turned out to be a mistake. Not that Harry had known that. Remus had wanted to kill him, too, and Remus wasn't a killer.

Well, okay, Remus had killed someone that one time, but two wars and only one person dead at your hands was a pretty good record if you're trying not to kill. Although he'd spent so long fucking wailing about it that you'd think it had been a lot more than one.

Remus had died, though. The problem was not whether you wanted to kill, but that the other side was very much willing to. Enjoyed it. Especially in the case of blood traitors and half-breeds.

Fucking Peter.

He hadn't asked what had become of Peter in the future. He hoped he was dead, or at the very least rotting away in Azkaban with an honour guard of at least eight Dementors. He'd have to ask Ginny or Luna. Hermione wouldn't say a thing.

About the only thing stopping him chasing Peter down now was that he was safe in Hogwarts. James, at least the old James, and Remus would say it wasn't ethical to kill someone before they've at the very least joined the Death Eaters. Sirius would do so if he needed to.

And, besides, he'd tried blindly chasing Peter down before, and it hadn't worked. Peter was an expert at not getting caught, which Sirius had once thought was incredibly useful when annoying Slytherins.

He was going to have to plan it, carefully this time.

"Sirius?"

Hermione was standing in the doorway, her pink socks slightly dirty already from the state of his carpets. She was looking straight at him, as if appraising him. He paused his cupboard search, with several tins of dried food in his left hand and a bag of potatoes that had grown leaves in his right.

"I just wanted to say, thank you for letting us stay here."

"It's no problem," he said. "You don't want to be here, and it gives you a safe space to work out how to get back to where you're meant to be."

If he helped them, they would be gone quicker, and he could do what he was here to do without interruptions.

There was an incredibly loud noise, which made the pale brown painted walls of the house shake and a saucepan fall off a hook with a crash. Luna and Ginny ran into the kitchen.

"What the hell was that?" shouted Ginny.

"Train," said Sirius. "I'd forgotten to warn you why this house was called The Crossing." He pulled open the slightly sticky orange kitchen curtains to reveal a Muggle train shooting past, and several lorries waiting at a level crossing. "Happens once an hour, at least. You'll get used to it."

"Magical trains are a lot quieter," said Ginny.

"It's on the Hogwarts line, too," said Sirius. "Muggles can't see it, and just get frustrated when the crossing seems to close without a reason. The house used to belong to a Muggle called the Signalman. No idea what he did, or why he doesn't live here any more."

"Signalmen used to open the level crossings, before they mechanised the gates," said Hermione. "They do it with electricity."

"Muggles are weird. A man to open the gates?" said Ginny.

"Muggles are not that much different from us," said Luna. "We all die."

That was true, Sirius supposed, if a bit dark. However, if he had his way, a few people would be dying a little later, and some a hell of a lot earlier. He looked over to the photograph of Remus and James, with Peter ripped out, now sat next to the sink on a pile of plates.

He'd sort it for them.

He had to.


	6. Chapter 6: The Theoretical

**Chapter Six: The Theoretical**

 _Hermione_

 _July 1978, The Crossing, Lincolnshire_

There was something incredibly suspicious about Sirius Black.

It wasn't just that his story was full of holes, which it absolutely was, and Hermione was sure he wasn't telling them the half of it. There was something else.

For starters, he was almost always chipper and friendly, willing to chat to any of them and give advice. When she'd known him before, at Grimmauld Place, he'd mostly skulked around looking morose. The only times he wasn't happy here was when he was looking at the photograph Luna had pointed out to him on their first night at The Crossing.

He carried the photo everywhere with him. She'd found it in the bathroom once, slightly misted up from condensation, and spotted it propped on the kitchen work surfaces as he cooked. Hermione understood. She could only imagine how to would have felt to lose Harry or Ron, and he'd lost three friends in various ways.

She spent a lot of time watching him, trying to work out how this Sirius fitted with the Sirius she had known at Grimmauld Place and the Sirius Remus had talked about from Hogwarts. And the Sirius in the Shrieking Shack, when he'd tried to kill Peter, matted and tangled and wild with anger.

She didn't know which one was the real Sirius Black, or if none of them were.

It was entirely possible that he didn't know either.

Their lives had settled into a routine at The Crossing. The house had three bedrooms, the two guest rooms much tidier than Sirius' own. Hermione had settled into the one Sirius said had been claimed by James, an uncluttered room containing a bed and a chest of drawers filled with abandoned bits of teenage boy clothing. Ginny and Luna shared the other, which had two twin beds and several components of a motorcycle in it.

The four of them ate meals together, but otherwise did their own thing. Luna was reading her way through the eclectic mix of books Sirius kept in the house, which included everything from Muggle motorcycle maintenance manuals, through advanced texts on Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts, to a collection of books on magical history that were far more interesting than anything they'd ever been taught in History of Magic at school. Ginny was often in the garden. Sirius alternated between fiddling with his motorbike, which was kept in a lean-to beside the house, and lurking near to Hermione.

He was doing the latter one afternoon almost two weeks after they'd arrived in the past. She was at his dining table, the parchments from the Ministry about the black box and the latest developments of time theory spread around her like most days. He was on the sofa, behind her, thumbing through one of the motorcycle manuals. He had a quill in his hand, and was scribbling notes in the margins. Hermione hated that.

The easy parts of her research had been done. She'd reviewed all the papers, which had been unnecessary really as she'd remembered almost all of it from her read-throughs when doing her job. She'd made detailed notes of how the box had functioned when they'd used it, and cross referenced it to her experience of the Time Turner in third year.

She'd then written down everything else she knew about time, including Muggle theories, just in case, and anything she could ever remember anyone seriously theorising, and noted which ones she'd seen confirmed as fact and which needed further research.

And now she was stuck.

She needed more facts, which meant she either needed some books or to open the box again.

"Sirius?" she asked.

The scratching of the quill behind her stopped. "Yes?"

"Is there a wizarding library we could access?"

"Harry said you were a bit obsessed with libraries."

"I am not! I just need to check a few things out, and well, I've always had access to the one at Hogwarts or the staff one at the Ministry and I can't get into either now."

"There's the British Wizarding Library."

"How did I never know that before?"

"Your wizarding world knowledge mainly comes from Ron Weasley, and some of the Order members, right?" Sirius asked. She nodded. "How many of them have you ever seen read a book, who wasn't your teacher at the time?"

She thought about that. "Remus Lupin, Albus Dumbledore, and Molly Weasley."

"Exactly. You've been mainly exposed to people who don't exactly value books. Remus would have known about it, he says he worked there for a while after the first war, but it's not well used as a source of reading material. Generally, it functions as a sort of storeroom. There's one of each book ever published in there somewhere, although a few of them have been locked away for the good of the wizarding world."

"I think those may be some of the ones we need," said Hermione. "The Ministry is incredibly secretive about time travel."

"The Ministry has a very low opinion of the general wizarding population, I find. Stands to reason they'd hide time travel information."

"It's for their safety."

"Really? You saw what the Ministry was capable of, the year before I fell through the Veil. What they did to Harry, putting Umbridge in at Hogwarts, all the anti-werewolf stuff, attacking Dumbledore, and you say that?" He put down the quill, deliberately carefully, and lowered the book.

"I don't trust it as far as I can throw it."

"Why do you trust them on this, then?"

"Time is dangerous, Sirius." Her seat at the table overlooked the garden, and she looked away from Sirius to where Ginny was lying on the grass. She was charming flowers to open and close around her. Across the unruly lawn, Luna was sat on a rickety bench, nose in a textbook.

"But it can also be a force for good. Time travel is what led to me surviving long enough to fall through the Veil, and not being a husk sitting in Azkaban breathing without knowing. Well, and you and Harry."

"And that's the thing! If the Ministry had the Time Turner, they would have made sure to get to you and they'd have been after Remus, too! What would Death Eaters do with access to a Time Turner?"

"But they didn't. You have to use the weapons you have, Hermione."

She turned back to Sirius.

"Where's the line?"

It was a question she'd asked herself so many times. Harry had killed Voldemort, and she didn't consider him a killer, not really, as he'd fought to disarm rather than to kill. Some of the other Order members she'd respected had killed. She had felt disgust every time she'd heard of a Death Eater who'd killed.

Intent mattered, but there still had to be a line.

Dumbledore had believed in the greater good, of some suffering being necessary for the right course to win out in the end. She was sure many of the Death Eaters rationalised in the same way.

What actions were fine, if you did them for a cause?

Sirius was thinking over the question, too. He'd reached for a goblet of water at his side, and was watching her as he slowly drank.

"Somewhere where it becomes premeditated, and designed to hurt, I think," he said, and she could tell he was answering it for more than just time travel. "Tell me, you said before that time travel is not always as simple as 'I did it before, so I need to do it again', which is how I'd always understood the problem."

"It is and it isn't," said Hermione. "In some cases, that will be true. In others, it won't be. And I have no idea how to tell which is which."

She wasn't exactly used to failing. She'd got better, the year of the Horcrux hunt in particular, and in wartime in general when so much was out of her control. But theoretical problems? She had almost no reference points for failing at that.

Hermione hadn't come into contact with a Boggart since her third year at Hogwarts, and she suspected it had changed considerably. But that early fear still lurked in the background, and she felt it more and more now the physical danger of war had passed.

"Well, we need to pick a premise and work through that one fully first, and then we can either assume that it is true for this situation or reject it and move on to the next. Of course, from what you're saying there may well be more than one truth, especially given there are essentially two sets of time travellers here who have come via different means and may well have different effects on the timeline," Sirius said. "Although I've never studied time theory even slightly, I may be of some use."

"Thank you," she said. The fact that there was two sets of them had occurred to her, and she hadn't worked out how to balance for that yet. She knew Sirius was reasonably intelligent, based on the things she knew he'd done like becoming an Animagus while still at school, but she hadn't expected that he seemed to enjoy a theoretical problem.

It was always possible she had underestimated him.

She had assumed he wanted to get rid of them, so he could change the past. His story… well, she'd thought it was probably true, because it was just too weird not to be, and there was no logical reason for him to lie about how he'd come here. She had partly asked about the library as she wanted to look for some books on the theories on Death, so she could check for any other stories of a similar type.

The main reason she believed it was remembering Harry's story, from when he'd briefly died in the Forbidden Forest.

"It was weird," sad Harry, sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall a day or so after the final battle had been fought. They were sitting surrounded by rubble from the fight, which they'd been gradually clearing, but they needed to eat sometimes.

"I was dead, and Dumbledore was there. In Kings Cross Station. He told me all sorts of things, it's a bit unclear, I want to put it in a Pensive and see if I can remember more of it. He told me it was in my head, but that it was real. He said I could stay, or I could come back."

Ron put down his sandwich. "So bloody weird, mate."

"I'm glad you chose to come back," said Ginny.

"I don't think I seriously considered anything else. Not really," said Harry.

Harry had no reason to lie, and neither did Sirius. Which meant they probably were not, as neither of them were the type to create their own realities.

Why would Sirius have chosen to come back, and was it him that had chosen now?

There was a very obvious reason; that he was trying to change something.

He said he'd never studied time theory.

Surely he couldn't think changing the past was a good idea?

He hadn't said he was going to. At no point had he done anything explicit that would make Hermione reasonably able to assume that he did want to change time. Except for being here in the first place.

The question was if she trusted him, and a niggling little noise in the back of her head suggested that she shouldn't.

"The more pressing issue, however," he said, interrupting her thought process, "is that eighteen-year-old Sirius moves back into here in a couple of days, and I don't remember me being here when I arrived which almost certainly means it didn't happen." At her look, he added, "I was a bit, let's say under the influence."

"We'd best leave," she said. "Do you know anywhere we can go?"

"Unfortunately, no," said Sirius. "I've thought about it, and the best idea I have is scraping some more money from my account at Gringotts and acquiring somewhere. Either that, or camping."

"Not camping," Hermione shuddered. "We should ask Luna and Ginny."

"Already did," said Sirius. "Neither of them have anything that would work."

"It's possible," said Hermione, very slowly, as she was working through the idea as fast as she spoke, "I may have somewhere. My grandmother died before I was born, but after my parents married in 1977. My parents kept her house empty until I was seven or so, when we cleared it to use as a holiday house. If we were careful, we may be able to stay there."

"Where is it?" asked Sirius, looking interested.

"It's in a Muggle seaside town. Saltburn-by-Sea, in north Yorkshire?"

"Never heard of it," said Sirius. "It's worth a shot."

They Apparated to the town. Hermione thought she'd remember the house when she saw it, so they walked the streets in the general area for a while until she locked in on a small, middle of a terrace house with a brick exterior and blue-painted windows.

"Alohomora," she whispered, pointing her wand at the lock.

Inside, it was just as she remembered it before they'd cleared it out. It was dated. The decor was very much from the 1940s with a few minor updates over the years, such as the television in the corner of the room. Luna was looking at that with much interest. Hermione walked around the floral sofas and past the dark wooden dining table and let herself through the door into the kitchen. From there, she could see out the windows into the garden, where she had played with her parents. Next to the sink, a single mug stood upside down on the draining board, evidence of a final cup of tea.

Upstairs, she knew, were two bedrooms, and a reasonable sized bathroom. There would be an outside toilet in the garden, too, as she remembered her dad knocking it down and that hadn't happened yet. It had been full of spiders.

Ron would have hated it.

She leant onto the work surface, and looked out at the shed that housed the outside toilet. Ron had been returning to her thoughts more often the longer they had been in the past. To begin with, it had almost been like he was staying at The Burrow, and her elsewhere, and it wouldn't be long before they were reunited.

Now, she felt further away from him with every passing day.

His freckled face swam into her mind when she was talking to Ginny, his sister forming a link for the thoughts. But it was there when she thought of anything that tied the two of them together; Hogwarts, Sirius' mention of camping, the idea of coming up against a Death Eater, the scars on her body when she put her magic over them in the mornings to disguise them.

And in her dreams.

It was hard to believe how cross she had been with him the day they had left the future. When she dug down, the anger returned. He had been being an arse. But it was such a shit way to part with someone, and what if she couldn't get back?

"Alright?" asked Ginny.

"Just thinking of Ron," she said. "There's spiders in the outside toilet, and…"

"My brother is a wimp," Ginny finished. "You know, even after the whole bit where he faced up Death Eaters and destroyed Horcruxes, he's still scared of them? Mum found a Boggart in the house when we moved back in, and Ron and I offered to handle it." She paused. "He did make me promise not to tell anyone that."

"Did you already tell Harry?"

"Yes."

"He's going to get you for that."

"I know. If we make it back."

"We will."

Ginny looked defeated, which Hermione had never seen before. Ginny had frequently been the one who kept things moving, especially after the war. She was not somebody who gave up.

"I think of Harry constantly," said Ginny. "Tomorrow, in twenty-four years, we should be marrying."

"That doesn't mean we won't still be able to get back in time."

"So you keep saying. And not that I don't believe you. I just…"

"It's hard, isn't it, to imagine getting back."

"Yeah. I think of Mum a lot too. She's barely got over losing Fred. Bunch of idiots we are, we all blame ourselves for his death, when rationally it wasn't any of us, but she's been by far the worst. Says her only job in life has been to keep us safe, and she's failed. And what if we don't get back, and I'm gone?"

"We will."

"If we don't?"

"Your mum will survive it. She's strong enough."

"Yeah."

"Ginny, I didn't want to say that."

"I know. I don't want to think it. But maybe we have to be allowed to some of the time. Not all the time. Think positive, yeah? We'll get back, to Mum and Harry and Ron and even to the rest of those idiots. Luna's dad."

Sirius insisted on sleeping on the sofa in another fit of gallantry, and so Hermione again ended up in a room on her own. She took the smaller one, which contained one single bed, leaving Luna and Ginny the larger bed. None of them could find a third duvet, so Sirius was fetched a variety of handmade blankets to cover him. As they went to bed on their first night in Saltburn, Hermione was sure she saw him remove the photograph of James and Remus from his pocket and tuck it next to him on the sofa.

"Night," she said, turning to go up the steep wooden stairs.

"Night, Hermione," she heard in reply.

She still desperately wanted to get to the library, and Sirius agreed to take her, in a few days. He said he had something to do first. Ginny wanted to stay behind, muttering something about making the house clean, but Luna came along when they finally left for the library. The three of them Apparated to their destination, a local shopping parade in an obscure part of London. It had seen better days, with a chip shop, laundrette and corner shop occupying three of the units and the other two standing empty.

Sirius strolled up to the empty unit next to the laundrette, which was painted with peeling red paint. "We're here for the books," he said.

Nothing happened.

"Are you sure this is right?" asked Hermione.

"We're in the right place," said Sirius, scratching his nose. "Hang on."

He tapped the door with his wand, and said the words again. The door swung open, revealing a huge room filled with books.

"Names and business?" asked a cheery witch sitting behind a desk to the left of the entrance. She put down her wand, which had been charming books to fly back to their shelves.

"Er, Jean Henderson," she said, giving the first fake name that popped into her head. "Here to browse?"

"Go ahead," said the witch. "Been before? Fiction is over there, factual there and organised by subject. Magazines and other periodicals are at the back, near biographies. Reading area in the centre, toilets to the right."

"This is amazing," said Hermione, staring around at the books.

"Well, I'm still convinced whatever it is you're here for will be safely locked away," said Sirius. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets as he spoke.

Luna had wandered off already into the fiction aisles, leaving Hermione and Sirius to head off in search of the section on time theory. It didn't take them long to find it, tucked away in between 'Spirits and Spectres' and 'Transfiguration'.

"I'll be here," said Sirius, taking up an armchair at the end of the row, and pulling parchment and quill from his pocket.

Hermione desperately wanted to ask what he was writing, but her job here was more pressing. Instead, she began to scan the titles in the fairly small section, looking for ones she hadn't read.

She found a few of interest, including one entitled Loops or Lines? An analysis of the impacts of time travel on future timelines and one on the beginnings of Time Turners. Piling them in her arms, she looked around for Sirius. She wanted to go to the section on Death without him noticing.

He had left the armchair he had been sat in.

This was a good thing for her going to a different section unattended, but if her suspicions about him were correct it could be a bad thing.

She would go to the Death section quickly, then look for Sirius. How much damage could he do in a public library?

He had most likely just gone to check on Luna.

Hermione had selected a couple of books from the section on death when she heard voices from the other side of the shelves to her. One of the voices was familiar, but it was not Luna's or Sirius'.

On closer listening, one sounded an awful lot like Remus Lupin.

It was incredibly rude, but she listened in. Removing a couple more books allowed her to peep through the shelves at the speakers.

"Just get on with it, Moony," came the voice of the man standing next to a younger Remus Lupin.

"What if they reject me too?" This younger version of Remus was picking at the sleeves of his baggy, slightly threadbare jumper, a habit he'd kept in his future. He looked healthier than his future self, with no grey hairs, less scars, and more weight on his body. His tall, wide frame had always looked slightly out-of-proportion on the werewolf, but in this reality he just looked powerful.

"They don't know you. It probably would mean they have no jobs going. It's not personal." The other man had dark, messy hair. Hair an awful lot like Harry's. This was James Potter, without a doubt. Hermione's stomach flipped. She was staring directly at Harry's dad, and this was so dangerous.

James and Remus continued to argue, culminating in James grabbing the piece of parchment Remus had been holding from his hand and marching towards the witch on the front desk. Hermione went to pull away as they went, and replace the books, but she stopped herself.

There were eyes looking through the bookshelves on the other side of the pair.

Grey eyes.

Sirius knew Remus and James would be here, and he was watching them.

When she was sure James and Remus were out of sight, Hermione darted between the lines of shelves to find Sirius. Coming into contact with him rather forcefully, as he'd been further towards the end of the line of shelving than she'd realised, she grabbed him by the arm and began to pull him back into the library. Once safely hidden in amongst the Divination section, where nobody would be stupid enough to go, she pinned him up against the books with her wand. The titles she'd been holding under her arm clattered to the floor.

"What the fuck are you doing spying on James and Remus?" she hissed as quietly as she could.

"Same as you, I'd imagine," he said, keeping eye contact with her and avoiding looking at her wand.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I do."

"You're trying to change things!"

"If I was doing that, don't you think I'd have gone and talked to them? 'Hey, James, don't listen to Sirius in a few years and kick Peter as far onto the far side of fuck as you can? Remus, when you go on the Order mission to Malfoy Manor in a year or so, don't leave Marlene on her own?"

She lowered her wand.

"I don't know if I should trust you."

"I'm helping you, Hermione. If you don't want to trust me, I can't make you, but please don't think I'm stupid."

"I've just seen something rather interesting," came the voice of Luna Lovegood, rounding the end of the shelves with an armful of wizarding novels. "I think that was our old Professor Lupin, back there, with Harry's father."

"We saw," said Hermione, tersely. And she was certain Sirius had known they were here, even if he wasn't going to admit that to her.

"I thought you might have," said Luna, her eyes flicking from Hermione to Sirius. "They've gone now. It's a funny coincidence they were here at the same time as us, isn't it? Hermione, you've dropped your books."

Coincidence was likely indeed, Hermione thought, as she picked up her books. The last one had been picked up by Sirius, whose hand brushed hers gently as she went to take it from him.

"Trust me," he said, as he relinquished his hold.


	7. Chapter 7: Climbing

**Chapter Seven: Climbing**

a/n: This chapter includes a reference to past child abuse, it's not graphically described but it's there. I've marked the section between * signs and if you skip the part the chapter will still make sense.

 _Sirius_

 _July 1978, Saltburn_

Ginny and Luna were playing Exploding Snap when Sirius walked into the living room on an August evening, a small pile of cards on the tiled coffee table. The door banged shut behind him as he threw himself onto the sofa and began to remove his boots.

"Oh, Sirius, hi" said Ginny with a look on her face that suggested something was very much wrong. He stopped trying to take off his boots.

"I'd hide, if I was you," said Luna, throwing down a card onto the pile. "Or if you don't want to do that, I'd recommend a very strong Shield Charm."

Sirius was about to ask why when his question was answered for him. The other door to the living room flew open and Hermione came through it with her eyes and hair wild. She threw a spell at him before he could get out his wand, and he dived to the floor.

"Petrificus Totalus!" she shouted, and Sirius' body snapped rigid.

"Is that necessary?" asked Ginny, eyebrows raise. "He didn't attack you or anything."

"I know what he's been doing!" she shouted, waving a very familiar notebook in the air. Luna's eyebrows shot into her fringe. Ginny sighed.

"Come on, Luna," she said. "I don't want to listen to Hermione shout at Sirius again. Let's go to get the groceries, that's what we were putting off anyway."

"To be fair to Hermione, she hasn't shouted at him for at least three weeks, and sometimes he does deserve it," said Luna, but followed Ginny out anyway.

"You're making a list of Death Eaters, with who they killed in the first war next to them! And dates! And… and…"

It was perhaps predictable that she would have gone looking through his stuff. He should have thought of that.

It proved she was suspicious of him, which he'd thought she was.

"What are you going to do with this? What the fuck are you planning, Sirius Black?"

Much as he wanted to answer, he couldn't, as she'd frozen his mouth shut. He was reduced to laying there mute until such time as she released him. Or, until she was done shouting, and Ginny came home to say the counter-spell.

It wasn't a problem. He could justify his actions, and if she screamed some of it out before he explained it all then it would be easier to get the words in.

"You're trying to change the future, aren't you? I thought you were getting it! I bloody hoped you were getting it! You don't, do you?"

Surprisingly, she flopped down into the armchair Luna had vacated and started to cry, her wand flopping to her side.

Sirius was still on the floor, unable to move or speak. Which may have been a positive, as he wasn't sure what he would do or say at this stage anyway. He might well make it worse, and she didn't seem to want to hex him any more.

"Why does nobody get what this can do?" she sobbed.

He thought that was unfair. He did get it. The whole point was that he understood what changing the past could do. He could do it better, with the knowledge he had, and if she would only tell him more he could do even more with it!

She mumbled the counter-spell, and Sirius picked himself up.

"Why, Sirius?" she asked. She was upright in the armchair now, perched on the edge and watching him closely. Tears were still on her face, but she had stopped producing fresh ones.

"Because I'm going to make it right."

"Make what right?"

"James and Lily. Remus. Marlene. Caradoc. Gideon and Fabian. Harry can have a family. Benji Fenwick's wife was pregnant. Edgar's kids can go to Hogwarts and have a life."

"You can't." The flat tone in her voice angered him. How dare she say it like that? Did she even know what she was fucking with?

"Yeah? Harry survived. I heard you talking about Ron Weasley, he survived. You get your best friend and your boyfriend, and what do I get? Dead friends, Hermione, twelve years in Azkaban, and no fucking future."

"You don't know anything!"

"Yeah, what don't I know?" he scowled. She didn't have a fucking clue, this young girl who'd been through war and it had barely touched her. She had no idea.

She made him want to throw her into a Pensive and show her every single death he'd seen, every single family he'd seen torn apart, the funerals, the sitting around waiting to hear if someone would make it, the fucking horrible emptiness of sitting in Azkaban with nothing and then coming out and there still being nothing. Remus being there, but trying to kill himself, Harry slipping away. Just Sirius and Kreacher and Buckbeak, alone.

"You don't know shit, you selfish fucking bastard! Just because you don't know who I've lost! Fucking Muggles don't matter to you? Yeah, that's how everyone else felt. I had to save my parents myself, and I lost them anyway. I made them fucking forget me, Sirius! I Obliviated them, and they don't know me now. They're not my parents, and I can't fucking get them back!"

He stood back from her, as she leapt forward, brandishing her wand.

"Fred Weasley mean anything? I cared for Remus too. And Tonks. Fucking Lavender, I shared a room with her for six years even if she did shag Ron and I hated her for a bit there. You don't even know who else, because you weren't there, and you didn't think there may have been some people? Stuck in your own fucking selfish world!"

She was still waving her wand, red and orange sparks flying from the ends of it. She seemed unwilling to curse him, although she looked close. Instead, she shoved him firmly into the sofa behind, and stared down at him with contempt in her eyes.

"Don't ever assume you're the only one that's lost something," she said, coldly, and ran out through the kitchen. He heard the back door open, and shut again.

Sirius lay where he had been thrown. He should have thought of other people's losses, but perhaps she should have said something too. It wasn't exactly his fault that she'd only told him about Remus. She'd been so busy keeping her knowledge of the future to herself that she hadn't thought about how that impacted other people. Impacted him.

So Tonks was dead in her future, too. She'd thrown that at him to hurt him.

Had she?

Maybe this is what she meant by selfish.

It had been hurting her.

She had said she cared for Remus too. She was hurting about Remus' death too.

Not as much as he had, he was prepared to guess. Remus was the best friend he'd had.

Did that matter?

It would still hurt. He hadn't felt the same for Caradoc, or Marlene, or Benji, as he had for James and Lily and Remus, but their deaths had still hurt.

She may have had a point.

He should apologise.

He lay on the sofa for a further two hours before he knew what he would say.

She was sat up in the tree at the end of the garden, perched on a wide branch about halfway up. One foot hung down, the other resting on a lower branch, and her hands tangled in amongst the leaves. Possibly deliberately, she was looking away from the house, staring out over the rooftops towards the sea.

"Hermione?" he called, crossing the grass.

She moved slightly at the sound of his voice, but didn't turn or look towards him. Her hair hung down her back in a thick plait, and she was wearing the shiny gold top they'd bought their first morning in their past. The colour suited her, and her skin shone in the moonlight.

"Hermione?" he tried again. This time, there was no movement.

Sirius stopped at the bottom of the tree. He was going to say this, whether she acknowledged him or not, and then at least he'd have said it.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry that I lied."

He may have been imagining it, but he thought he heard a angry sigh from above him. He continued talking, focusing on the bare soles of her feet as he could not see her face.

"I just… Look, I don't really know how to say everything I want to say, because it's been a very long time since I had to. My friends, Hermione, they were my family. They were all I had when I had nothing. They showed me a world where I could be someone that I chose to be, not the person I felt like I had to be and that my family wanted. They were there when said family was being the very worst they could be, and they picked me up again afterwards. I don't know who I am without them to define me.

"I don't know how to survive in a world without them. You said I was selfish. I am. I want them to live for selfish reasons. But I do want them to have a better life. James really could have, he had everything right for him. Remus deserved to too. I… I don't know if I do. I don't know if you're right, and I should accept this."

He sat down at the base of the tree, back against the trunk and ran his hands through the grass. It was wet, and he could feel the damp seeping into his jeans.

Her voice came down from the tree, crackling slightly as she spoke.

"I've been trying to work out who you are, all along. What kind of person you are. Which of the many Sirius Blacks is the real one."

"Let me know when you find out, yeah?"

She laughed, but it wasn't mocking in tone. It was soft and gentle, as if she understood.

"I will."

"Can I come up?"

"I don't know. Can you?"

"I don't want to intrude." She has stormed out here to get away from him, and here he was following. This had been such a bad idea.

She laughed again. "No, I mean, can you climb a tree?"

"Never tried," he replied.

Sirius got up from the ground and grabbed at a nearby low branch, trying to swing himself upwards with his limited upper body strength. He tried in this way a couple of times before his grip failed him and he landed on the grass.

"Fuck."

"Use your legs," she said. "Against the trunk. Shoes off is easier."

He kicked his boots off into the grass and tried that, and managed to almost walk himself up the trunk hanging off the low branch. With a huge amount of effort, and some grunting noises, he managed to hoist himself into the tree. She was a little higher. He was able to get himself to her level with slightly more grace than he'd shown getting into the tree in the first place.

Picking a branch, he arranged himself in the most comfortable manner he could find. It wasn't particularly comfortable, and he didn't feel very secure.

"Hello," he said.

"Look at the sea," she replied.

He hadn't appreciated the appeal of being up the tree until that point. The sea was clearly visible from here, and the rise and fall of the waves was almost hypnotic. There was a soft reflection of the moonlight in the water, making it shine as it swished to the coastline and back again in a predictable rhythm. A ship was visible on the horizon, if you looked out past the pier, and stars shone in the sky.

It was beautiful.

He looked to Hermione, who had been watching the waves too.

"I used to climb trees all the time, as a child," she said, still looking out to sea. "There were these children, in my class, who bullied me. Do you use that word in the wizarding world?" Sirius nodded. "They used to chase me from the park if they saw me, so I would climb a tree where they couldn't get to me."

"Why?" he asked. "Why did they bully you?"

"I think they knew I was different. I assumed it was because I was into books, and was far too keen to answer questions in class. A bit of a teacher's pet, even. But maybe it was more than that. A few of them were clever too. I think now that they could sense the magic, and were afraid."

"That doesn't mean they should have bullied you."

"No, it doesn't. But when people are afraid, I think they do things they wouldn't otherwise. Isn't that what Voldemort's doing? He's manipulating people's fears to make them do what he wants, or at least to not act against him."

"Regulus."

"Your brother?" She looked into his eyes for the first time since he'd come outside.

"He was afraid of my parents. He… he wasn't bad. Not really. He got cold feet, you know, and tried to leave the Death Eaters. Tries. I forget when exactly that happens. But still he joined, and he almost certainly killed and tortured, because he was afraid of our parents and he was afraid of the other Death Eaters."

Thinking about Regulus hurt. He wanted to save Regulus, too, but Regulus had made his own choices and that wasn't going to be possible.

"He was very brave, your brother."

"Do you know something about him too? No, wait. Don't tell me. I don't think I want to know what that twat did."

"I will if you want to."

This startled Sirius. She'd always been pushing back at his desire to know more of the future than he did, because she thought it would make him run headfirst into trying to stop things. And here she was, offering him information about his brother.

Did she think he'd changed, and that he was content to let the world work itself out the way it had before? Because he wasn't. He was still just as determined, he just planned to change his approach.

Perhaps it was her that was changing.

"Okay."

He still wasn't sure if he wanted to hear this. But information had to be a good thing.

"Regulus stole something from Voldemort. I don't know what provoked it, except he'd had some kind of interaction with Lucius Malfoy around the time that he did it and Regulus had stormed out of Malfoy Manor. The thing he stole… it was helping keep Voldemort alive, essentially. He found out about it when he leant Kreacher to Voldemort, told Kreacher to come back, and Kreacher told him what it was. He went out there, and he took the item, and he died doing it. Kreacher told us the story."

"Fucking hell. Regulus. What happened to the item?"

"Ron destroyed it some years later. The story of how it got to Ron involves Kreacher, Mundungus Fletcher, Dolores Umbridge and Severus Snape, so a wide range of your very favourite people."

He laughed at that, a low chuckle which surprised him when it came out of his mouth.

"Dung wasn't so bad, long as you didn't rely on him for anything."

"He stole loads of valuable stuff from your house just after you died."

"That doesn't surprise me," said Sirius. "I'll bet I didn't want any of it anyway."

"Probably not. Harry got all angry about him disrespecting your memory."

Sirius laughed. He could imagine Harry doing that. He was a good kid. Would be. The passage of time, and what fitted where, was confusing him at the best of times.

"My little brother, turned out to be a hero," he said, after a few moments silence. He'd known Regulus had been trying to get out. He'd always assumed that this had been discovered and that some Death Eater had killed him on Voldemort's orders. Not that he'd died doing a brave and noble thing, a very Gryffindor thing. He wondered if the Death Eaters had ever known what had happened to Regulus. His parents had known he'd died; he'd assumed they'd been told by Death Eaters but it must have been Kreacher.

The item, though.

Something that kept Voldemort alive.

He dug through the darkest bits of his brain, the parts where he kept the memories of his life with his parents.

Horcruxes.

"Was it a Horcrux?" he asked her.

"How do you know about those?"

"Lot of Dark wizards in my family," said Sirius. "And ones that weren't very good at keeping children away from things that weren't appropriate for them to hear."

"But not Regulus," she said.

"No, Regulus was not a Dark wizard. Just a very scared one."

She smiled, a soft and sad smile. "It was a Horcrux."

"That bastard. I'm glad my brother stole it."

"Even if he had to die?"

Sirius wasn't sure. He was a Death Eater, and his creed had always been that Death Eaters deserved what they had coming to them. But he wasn't, not really. He'd been Marked under fear, and he had tried to redeem himself.

"Regulus didn't deserve to die."

"Nobody deserves to," she said.

"Voldemort? Bellatrix? Dolohov?" Sirius asked. "Loads of nasty ones, who weren't doing it from fear but because they wanted to."

"Okay, those three," said Hermione, rubbing the heavily disguised scars on her arm and thinking of Remus and the scarring along her chest. "And I'd add Umbridge."

"Death Eater?" asked Sirius.

"The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters," she said.

He remembered that line. "Didn't I say that to Harry?"

"You did."

"Well, must be right if I said it," he said. He stretched out his legs, which were getting cramp from holding him into the tree. He still didn't feel as though he could relax up here. Hermione did, by the way her hands were now draped into the branches rather than holding on with little white knuckles like his own were. "And besides, my parents never took the Mark."

"Your parents?"

"Bad people, not Death Eaters."

"Oh." She was waiting for him to continue.

"After I'd been sorted into Gryffindor, I used to wish that Regulus would be too. I thought the two of us could escape them. But he wasn't, and he couldn't. They kept a much tighter leash on him, after I started to rebel. It made me rebel more. It made him hide from them, but it didn't make his thoughts change. It didn't make either of our thoughts change."

He didn't know where he was going with this. Talking about his parents had never ended well for him, and it was by far better that those thoughts stayed where they belonged, shoved back into the furthest bits of his brain. Sirius knew what talking about his parents would lead to, and this was not a time for all of that.

His mouth had other ideas, and kept talking.

"They started off being quite normal. You know, gentle manipulation of the sort I've seen other parents do. It got worse. I went into Gryffindor, and they turned physical that Christmas. I was mad to think Regulus would ever go into Gryffindor after that. They made him watch. They knew all sorts of Dark magic, Hermione, and they weren't afraid to use it."

She was motionless and silent, the side of her face closest to him illuminated by the moon. It was listening, and letting him lead.

"I didn't tell anyone for years. How do you tell someone that your parents are cursing you, starving you, trying to make you do horrible things under the threat of pain?"

She was still watching him talk. He looked down at the grass. He was glad she wasn't reacting. It made it easier than if she'd have looked horrified.

"I… I wanted them to stop so badly that I did one of the things once. I cursed a Muggle. He had his wand on me, my father, and she was standing behind. They took me out into the square, and made me choose a Muggle to curse. They watched my face as I did it, and when I tried to stop before they thought I should he blasted me in the back. I… I fucking finished the job and then they let me run into the house."

There were well over a thousand blades of grass on the lawn. Maybe a million. Perhaps he could count them instead of telling this story. His shoes were on the grass. One of them was on its side. How many blades of grass were underneath it.

"It was the summer when I was thirteen. End of second year. I felt the worst I have ever felt, I relived it constantly when I was in Azkaban. I should have refused. I should have cursed them. I never did it again, Hermione, you have to believe me!"

"I believe you. You are not a bad man, Sirius."

"I've done bad things. I don't trust that I wouldn't do them again. Not to a Muggle. To someone else. Someone who actually deserves it."

"Good people do bad things. A bad person would not have this level of remorse. Voldemort didn't have a shred, even when he needed it most. Neither did Bellatrix. Which is why they won't be forgiven."

"I can't forgive myself."

"Maybe you will, in time. You didn't do it through choice."

"But I did it for the same reasons Regulus joined the Death Eaters, and I can't forgive him for that."

He took his hands off the branch they were gripping and began to roll up his t-shirt at the back.

"That's the scar," he said, pointing at a place he couldn't see but knew well on his lower back. He knew it was a round scar, maybe an inch wide, with a uneven edge and a slightly raised part on the left side.

"Sirius," said Hermione, reaching forward. "There's so many."

"My parents were bad people. Blacks generally are."

She touched the burn mark from the day he'd tortured the Muggle. Her fingers bumped over the raised part, and swirled around the edges in a soft circle that spoke of forgiveness. He relaxed, just a tiny bit. He remembered why he had been so tense. It wasn't the subject matter they were talking about. It was that he was in a fucking tree.

"You are not."

"I hurt a Muggle, an innocent Muggle."

"You were thirteen"

"Old enough to know better."

"You were a child." Her fingers were tracing lines between all the scars now, sliding along them and around them. "Tell me, honestly, that you think we should hold any other abused, frightened thirteen year old accountable for their actions?"

He was silent. He couldn't say that. They weren't.

"Then why are you so special that we should? They were torturing you just as much as anything you did that day, Sirius."

She removed her hands from his back, and rolled the t-shirt back down. His back felt cold now, and there was a small part of Sirius that wanted to ask her to continue. He didn't need her pity, though.

He may have fucked up, badly, all those years ago, but he could make it right.

Maybe not for that Muggle, he didn't have the first clue where to find that man. But he could for the others his actions, or lack of actions, had hurt.

"You never answered my question."

Gracefully, she manoeuvred herself through the tree to sit on the same branch as he was, and put her arm around his back.

"I'm not special. That's the point. I've done some terrible things, and I couldn't save my friends."

"We've all had someone we couldn't save," said Hermione. She was thinking of someone, or someones. Sirius could see her eyes drifting off to the sea again, and there was a look of remembering in her eyes. He wanted to ask who she hadn't saved, but she wouldn't tell him. The only willing piece of information she'd given was about Regulus, and that was likely calculated.

She'd gambled that he wouldn't want to change his brother's death. Maybe Harry wouldn't have survived without it. Maybe she wouldn't have, either.

Besides. He was keeping secrets from her. She had the right to her own.

"I'm sorry about your parents," he said.

"It's okay," she said. "It hurts, but you know how it is. We can be strong, because we have to be, when we lose family."

"I know," he said. "James and Remus were family. Regulus."

"I'm sorry we can't help them."

"Yeah. I know."

"Is it wrong that I still can't forgive him? Regulus? I want to help him, but I can't forgive what he did."

"I don't think so. I… I took a long time to forgive some people."

"You won't tell me who."

"No."

Much later, close to midnight, Sirius came in from the garden. Hermione had preceded him in, and was likely in bed by now, but he'd wanted the extra time to think. She had been right that the rise and fall of the sea was calming.

"Hello, Sirius," came an ethereal voice from the shadows of the kitchen. Luna, sat at the squashed-in kitchen table, was eating a bowl of soup. "You're looking as if you have a lot on your mind."

"Just… stuff."

"Oh yes, I understand. It's rather difficult, isn't it, to sort through your thoughts. I've been struggling with that myself."

Sirius went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. He'd never quite got his head around Muggle glasses. So fragile. He'd dropped one their first day here and it had smashed everywhere, splitting into tiny fragments on contact with the tiled kitchen floor. At least they'd been able to clean it up with wizarding methods.

"Yeah?" he said to Luna.

"Sometimes I feel as though there's a Wrackspurt in my brain."

Sirius had no idea what one of those was.

"I've been writing all this down, you know. I'm still not sure exactly where we are, but it's an interesting experiment in psychology. Daddy might print some of the story, when we get back."

"Luna?" said Sirius. "Do you know why Hermione is so reluctant for anything to change, in the future?"

"It's hard to perceive what you do not know to be true, without any evidence," said Luna. "And Hermione has always had a rather closed mind, if you ask me. She finds making a connection between an idea and the possible realities almost impossible."

"Yeah." Sirius wasn't entirely sure he understood.

"And fear," said Luna. "She's afraid of losing Harry and Ronald. I don't know if she knows that herself, but she is." She paused, scribbling something on the parchment next to her. "Of course, we may all be dead anyway."

"Thanks Luna. I'm going to try and get some sleep."

"Goodnight, Sirius."

He arranged his blankets around himself on the sofa, trying to wrap himself in them without any part of his body sticking out. He understood not wanting to lose people. That was why he was here, after all, but he just wished she would be even a little bit honest with him about her motivations.


	8. Chapter 8: Stale Bread

**Chapter Eight: Stale Bread**

 _Hermione_

 _August 1978, Saltburn_

After the night she'd shouted at him, and their subsequent heart-to-heart in the tree, Hermione didn't see Sirius for several days. If she hadn't known better, she would have said that he wasn't in the house at all, but Ginny and Luna both said that they had seen and spoken to him.

Luna's report of her conversation with Sirius didn't exactly make sense, but that didn't mean it hadn't happened.

If Hermione was truly honest with herself, she didn't know what she'd say to him if she saw him anyway.

 _'_ _Oh hey there Sirius, I'm sorry your brother was a Death Eater and your parents were horrible and your friends are all dead, but you still can't do anything about it and I plan to do everything in my power to stop you.'_

That would go down well.

Her attempt to be calm and considered and confront him about his plans had not gone exactly as she'd hoped. She'd screamed, hexed him, cried, and then ran away. Then they'd talked about child abuse, bullying and the power of fear in a tree, and she'd let him go without managing to explain her point.

She felt sorry for him, perhaps.

Because it was child abuse, what they'd done to him. In a different way, Harry had experienced the same at the hands of his aunt and uncle, so she knew the signs. And there had been no help for Sirius, because the wizarding world didn't take it seriously. She'd looked it up, once, to see if she could help Harry, and there was nothing. She'd have been better off reporting it to the Muggle authorities.

That was the first moment she'd hated the wizarding world, for letting down her friend.

The hate had come and gone over the years, directed at the Ministry for it's incompetence and outright bullying of Harry, and later at Dumbledore for what he'd put them through. He had been justified, perhaps, but it still wasn't particularly fair that they had been forced to go through everything they had. That Harry had. Her and Ron had always had a slightly easier time of it, and well, some of the less ideal things that had happened to them were their own fault.

Hermione shuddered slightly at the memory of the time she'd partially turned herself into a cat.

That hadn't been anyone's fault but her own, but still it wasn't really fair.

Nothing in her life so far had been particularly fair, and least of all this.

Hermione slammed the book she had been reading down on the coffee table, as her concentration had disappeared. She hadn't taken in anything on that last page. This section had proved useful, so far, and she wanted to make sure she understood it.

"I'm going for a walk," she said to Ginny. Her friend was on the floor of the sitting room, doing push ups. She'd started muttering recently about begging, buying or stealing a broom.

"I'll come with you," Ginny replied. "I'm about done with this."

They walked out and down to the seafront, picking their way down the steps from the cliffs to the beachfront. Hermione led them out onto the pier, and Ginny followed. They stopped to buy a bag of chips, and ate them on a bench at the far end of the pier, surrounded by holidaymakers and crashing waves.

"Got anywhere?" asked Ginny, tying her hair back to stop it from blowing in the wind. She looked around and cast a _Muffilato_ charm around them, to keep their conversation from baffling nearby Muggles. It was unlikely any of them would understand a word of what would be said between the two witches, Hermione thought, but you had to be careful with breaches of the Statute of Secrecy.

It would be really unhelpful if the Ministry found out about them. They were either wizards that there were no records about, and therefore probably accused of being undercover Death Eaters, or they'd have to own up to being time-travellers in which case they'd probably get committed to St Mungo's for insanity.

There had been several examples of that happening that she remembered from her reading on time travel. One of them had remained there for life, constantly claiming they were a time traveller. Most of the others hadn't gone back so far, and had eventually caught back up to their own timelines and been removed.

A part of her had considered talking to Dumbledore, likely the only person with the capability for the suspension of disbelief that might lead him to believe she was telling the truth. But that seemed like a surefire way to change what had happened.

"Sort of," Hermione said. "I've worked out what happened, I think. As Sirius was travelling around in time, of a sort, the item in the box picked up on the vibrations of that. That's why it chose the date it did; it just followed a trail that was already being made by Sirius. As to why it was able to send us back at all, that seems to have just been a malfunction. Either that, or someone in the Department of Mysteries planned this, which is unlikely."

"Indeed," said Ginny. She picked around in her bag of chips, looking for the small, crispy ones. "Unlikely happens to us a lot. You even more so."

"I thought that. But it's just too far-fetched. Isn't it?"

"It is a bit. I mean, did the Unspeakables even know who was going to review that box?"

"No. Well, they didn't know it was going to be me. It originally landed on the Senior Undersecretary's desk, before I was appointed to my job. It was only passed on to me once they realised I had more experience with the topic, and that was three weeks after it arrived on Level One."

"So the target could have been someone else."

"I think it was an accident, Ginny. I just can't see why they'd do it."

"Okay. You know more about this than I do, anyway." She dropped a chip, causing a flock of seagulls to circle in on them. Hermione leapt away, while Ginny kicked the chip far enough to cause the seagulls to fly off in pursuit.

"I've made some progress on getting us back," Hermione continued. "I've found most of the steps to make an ordinary Time Turner, and there's some interesting theory I copied from one of the library books about jumping forward in time. With the Time Turner I used previously, I had to wait for myself to catch up to my timeline. This, with some modification, looks like it's at least theoretically possible to go forwards."

"You caught up with yourself?"

"Yes, there was two of me, doing two different classes. It's how I got stuff done."

"So does that mean there's a version of me at home, happily married?"

"I don't know."

It was the truth. It wasn't a Time Turner, and it didn't necessarily work in the same way. The sum total of what she knew for certain to be true about their time-travelling device was in fact able to fit on just two feet of parchment, without her even using her small handwriting.

"Well, good. Don't want some other Ginny to marry my future husband. And I don't want to be an ancient bride when I get there."

Hermione smiled. "I don't want any other Hermione to make it up with Ron," she said.

"Nah, you prefer to do your own shouting," Ginny grinned. She emptied the remainder of her chips into her hand.

"Sirius was helping me," said Hermione, in an abrupt change of subject. The wind was picking up, and most of the Muggles were leaving the pier. The name Sirius would probably spark just as much confusion in the fairly conservative North Yorkshire town than anything about Time Turners.

"I know your theory that he's up to something," said Ginny. "I dunno. I think he's probably had as little choice in all of this as we have."

"Isn't it just a little bit suspicious? That list of all the Death Eaters and who they've killed?"

"How do you know he wasn't just keeping that list so he can avoid having to see any of that again? You wouldn't exactly want to, would you, if you've lived through it once? I know he's been a bit reckless in his past, but if he says he's learnt from that, which he has, many times, then why do you think he's going to suddenly rush off and do something stupid?"

"I don't know."

"He's asked you to trust him, Hermione. Give him a chance. Or, you know, have a conversation with him about it rather than hexing him and hiding in a tree."

"Yeah."

"You're not convinced."

"Of course I'm not. He's been through a lot, Ginny. If he wants some happiness from this then I can see why, but I don't think it will work how he wants it to."

"Perhaps that's what you need to say, then," said Ginny, looking mildly amused.

"I don't think he'll listen." He certainly hadn't been much interested in anything she'd had to say so far.

"You're mostly just issuing cryptic warnings. That's not talking to him. I know that worked with Ron and Harry, and they'd usually just do what you said and wait patiently for you to explain. But, with no offence meant to my brother or my fiancé, Sirius is smarter than them."

"Okay. I'll talk to him if he's willing to talk to me, properly."

"No hexing."

"No hexing," Hermione agreed. She didn't necessarily think it would work. If she had been wanting to be possibly slightly unfair, she would have accused Sirius of emotional manipulation the last time she'd tried to talk to him about their situations. She didn't think he was being manipulative. At least not intentionally. He seemed genuinely upset, and the Sirius she knew always wore his heart on his sleeve a bit.

But logically, you could see how someone would attempt that tactic at that point.

"Let's go back," she said. "I think I can get a couple more hours in on some calculations tonight. You never know. Might get somewhere. "

"I'm going to go find Luna. She went for a walk to the park, and last time she went there she got lost coming back."

They parted ways at the end of the pier, Ginny following the along the beachfront and Hermione up towards the cliffs. She decided against the steps, and chose instead to ride on the cliff lift.

She'd become quite attached to the little funicular railway on visits here as a child, and was relishing the chance to ride it again. There was something calming about getting into one of the little wooden cabs, settling down on the bench, and watching the sea fall away behind as you rose slowly up the cliff face. It was a timeless experience; it had been the same in the late 1980s as it was now, and likely much the same as when it had been built.

The wind rattled the sides of the cab as she rode, and the sea churned. She was sharing the cab with a family of Muggles, two parents, two kids and a grandmother. One of the kids was almost asleep on his mother's shoulder, and the other was excitedly running through her winnings from the arcade on the pier. The grandmother was worrying about the parking ticket, and the father was telling her to stop it.

And then there was the time-traveling witch.

She got out at the top to walk back to the house, turning the opposite way from the Muggles. The father was carrying his sleeping son now, while continuing the argument with the grandmother. The little girl and her mum skipped along, pausing occasionally to look over the cliff edge back down at the beach. Hermione smiled. She remembered doing that with her mum, in much the same place.

"In a world of your own there."

Hermione stopped, almost crashing into the speaker. Their neighbour was lugging her shopping home along the pavement, her five string bags bulging with groceries.

"Sorry," she said.

"You're the girl from next door, aren't you? Or one of them. I don't know how many of you there are in there. Scandalous, a lesser woman would say." She stopped, putting her bags down on the ground around her feet. "And that man. Now he's quite easy on the eye."

Hermione was reluctant to say too much. Their neighbour seemed to sense this, and laughed. If Hermione had to guess her age, she would have put her in her early sixties, with fluffy, bobbed grey hair and a round, welcoming face.

"Oh, I know what you lot are."

Hermione stiffened.

"Really?"

"I might live in amongst Muggles, but I know a wizard when I see one. Magic leaves its traces, my dear. I'm Jo, by the way. And you are?"

"Hermione." She had given up on using fake names, unless interacting directly with the authorities. It didn't seem to make any difference. They weren't really interacting with anyone she felt would ever know her future self.

"Well hello, Hermione. Not a wizarding name, that. Muggleborn?"

"Does it matter?" asked Hermione.

"Not at all. Muggleborn myself. Jo isn't a wizarding name either, is it? I'm named after Jo from Little Women."

"I liked that book."

"So did I. A lot of you in that house, isn't there? Nice looking bloke, too. He yours?"

"We're friends. We're all friends."

"I'd be more than friends with him, given half a chance. I'd best get this shopping home. Pop round for a cuppa if you get a chance. Bring the handsome wizard. As far as I know, until you lot arrived I'm the only witch in this town, and while I like that on the whole it can be nice for some company where I don't have to worry about the teacups bursting into song. Nearly had a heart attack when I had the chair of the WI round and my teapot started humming Christmas carols. Nightmare."

Hermione found herself promising to visit. Maybe she'd take Luna. She wondered idly what Jo would make of Nargles and Crumple-Horned Snornacks.

She was breaking her own rule not to get involved. Did this count? The house Jo lived in had housed a young couple with a baby when Hermione had visited, so she didn't know a young Hermione. There wasn't any issue with interacting with one witch, who likely had no impact on the course of the war.

But then you didn't know. There were multiple reports of people who had gone back in time, done things that appeared innocent, and then came back to carnage.

She wouldn't go for that cup of tea. And she definitely wouldn't take Sirius.

Arriving back at the house, she resolved to ask Sirius for a better history of exactly what was going on at this point in the war. She had a general overview, of course, from books she'd read and conversations with Order members, but she could do with a refresher. They had been in the past for almost two months, and she was nowhere near solving the problem. The war was in full swing. They would need to be so incredibly careful.

She considered that he wouldn't tell her. If he was intending to change the course of history, he wasn't exactly going to be willing to give her the information that could help her prevent that.

Well, she'd have to come up with another way. A good start would be subscribing to the Daily Prophet, although she'd always taken that particular paper with a pinch of salt. Rita Skeeter might be writing for them already. Maybe she could get hold of a wizarding radio. She might have to go to Diagon Alley for that, which could become interfering if she wasn't careful.

It would perhaps be better if she just concentrated on fixing the time-travel thing and staying out of trouble.

But then Sirius wasn't going to be doing that.

She slammed the bottle of milk she was holding down on the kitchen surface. This was all so bloody complicated.

"Alright, duck?" asked Sirius. He was casually leaning up against the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed. He'd brushed his hair for once, Hermione noticed. In his hand was a sandwich.

"Just… this is all so ridiculous."

"Tell me about it. What did you do with the others?"

"Ginny's off looking for Luna. Luna went to the park."

"Are you planning anything, Sirius?"

"Me? Planning to go to the chippy in a bit." He waved his sandwich at her. "Bread's stale. Disgusting."

"You know what I mean." They'd actually talked about real things the other night, and he'd shown real emotions and now he was back to being flippant and annoying and avoidant.

His wand was sticking out of his jeans pocket. Hermione seriously considered pulling it out and then locking him into the cupboard under the stairs until he was willing to have a proper conversation.

"Hermione, you don't trust me." He took another bite from his sandwich, then threw the rest down onto the table.

"No, I don't!" Of course she didn't. He hadn't given her a reason to.

"Let's talk about this later, okay?" Sirius walked off and disappeared into the bathroom, where there was a lot of clattering and clanking.

If he wouldn't tell her what he was up to, she'd find out for herself.

Giving up on her cup of tea, she went out into the living room. Standing on the bottom step of the stairs, she clumped up and down for a few moments to give the impression she'd walked upstairs. Then, she silently raised her wand and cast a Disillusionment Charm onto herself, ignoring the gloopy feeling of the spell working its way down her back and to cover her legs.

She waited.

Sirius walked out from the bathroom, eyed up the remains of his sandwich and decided against it. Hermione watched as he went to the coat-stand by the front door and slung on his jacket, checking the pockets, and fiddled with his wand to put it in an accessible but hidden location.

Hermione followed him out the door.

Ahead of her, Sirius walked down the road a few feet and then cut into the alleyway that went behind their terrace of houses and the one next to it. It was overgrown in places, and Sirius made for a spot that had a large apple tree growing over the fencing on one side and a towering stone wall on the other. Hermione hurried forwards, not wanting to be left behind.

Sirius stopped, carefully looking around. He made to spin to Apparate away. At the last possible moment, Hermione grabbed for his sleeve.

They landed in the shadows of a small copse of trees. Hermione leapt away on landing, throwing herself to the floor and staying as still as she could. Sirius was looking around, as if he'd noticed something. When there was no movement or sound, he seemed to think he'd imagined it and Hermione pulled herself up as soon as he turned around.

The trees rustled in the soft breeze, covering for any noise Hermione made as she followed Sirius to the edge of the copse. They were likely reasonably inland; the wind had been much worse by the coast. At the edge of the trees, Sirius stopped just under their cover.

In front of them was a huge house. A mansion, really. It stood in what could only be described as it's own park, with formal gardens and a sweeping driveway. The cold grey stone glistened in the sunlight, reflections shining off the many windows.

She'd known he was up to something. Where the hell was this?

With an action similar to her own, back at the house, Sirius lifted his wand and Disillusioned himself. This was about to get slightly more difficult.

Hermione reached down and picked up a stick from the floor, Transfiguring it into a length of string. With a Sticking Charm on the end, she could attach this to Sirius and be able to follow him. It took her three tries to attach it to the gently shimmering patch of air that was Sirius' back.

Unknowingly, Sirius lead the way around to the front of the mansion. They kept in close to the low perimeter wall. Even topped with black, spiked railings, the wall would not have kept out a determined climber. Hermione could only assume that it wasn't meant to. There were likely strong defensive charms and anti-intruder spells placed on it, and Hermione almost thought she could sense some darker magic there too.

Following Sirius was definitely an incredibly bad idea. She didn't even know where they were, or what was going to happen. It was a Harry-level idea, really.

Sirius stopped. For the second time that day, Hermione almost crashed into someone. That would have been even harder to explain this time, given she was practically invisible.

"Yaxley."

A voice came from up ahead, low and softly drawling with the accent of the well-to-do home counties. The man speaking wore long black robes with a trim of silver, a serpent clasp on his cloak.

"Lestrange."

The second speaker spoke in a slight London accent, his robes and cloak of a forest green.

"He's waiting," said Lestrange. Hermione recognised the name, but not the man. By his age, he would be either Bellatrix's husband or the husband's brother, possibly a cousin.

"Why are you out here?"

"My house, isn't it. Someone's got to welcome the guests." Lestrange leered when he smiled. Smiling didn't suit him.

"Am I the first?" asked Yaxley. He had a fresh cut on his ear, slightly scabbed over.

"Always," said Lestrange, and ushered the other man through the gate.

What the hell had Sirius brought her to?

What had she dragged herself into?

Was that a younger Snape? It was. She'd recognise that nose anywhere.

There was no conceivable way this was going to end well.


	9. Chapter 9: Taking Action

**Chapter Nine: Taking Action**

 _Sirius_

 _August 1978, Hambleton Hall, Kent_

Sirius crouched in a bush, Disillusioned. He'd considered transforming into his Animagus form, for extra concealment, but he had decided the ability to react quickly with magic was more important and besides, his eyesight was shit as a dog.

His legs were beginning to hurt.

Severus Snape was taking a whole long lot of time about whatever he was doing. Fucking Snivellus.

Sirius was incredibly tempted to curse the man with something at least borderline deadly, if not outrightly so. He knew what the man did for the Order in future. He struggled to see that as important compared to the outright fucking betrayal of telling Voldemort all about the prophecy that would lead him to try and kill Harry. Fucking Snivellus.

They could get themselves a new spy, for all he cared, he wanted rid of Snape.

However, Sirius had promised his imaginary Remus that he would exercise caution tonight, and his imaginary James that he would get Snape properly some other day. He had a job to do today. However fun it would be, hexing Snape even with something funny and not at all deadly would ruin it. He needed to remain unseen.

"Besides, Yaxley, I do not think what the Dark Lord has asked of me is any of your business." Snape's voice was crystal clear from where Sirius was hiding, and dripping in contempt. The pair of Death Eaters were standing just inside the gates, watched by one of the Lestrange brothers. Sirius would have recognised which one up close, but the light was tricky.

If Sirius hadn't known better, he'd have said the man had no sense of self-preservation. Yaxley had been a Death Eater for some years now, and Snape was a much newer recruit as well as a half-blood with a Muggle father to Yaxley's pureblood heritage. True, he wasn't a family of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, as Sirius' mother would have been the first to point out, but he was still much higher in status in the world inhabited by blood purists. Yaxley would have seen himself as above Snape in many ways.

"What the Dark Lord wants is very much my business," said Yaxley. "But for now I don't have the time to teach you exactly why I am right. The Dark Lord awaits, and I for one don't wish to sample his displeasure."

"And I don't wish to see a mess on my carpets," chuckled the Lestrange.

Snape turned, his black cloak swirling behind him, and began to stomp up the gravel path to the house. Yaxley followed, leaving the Lestrange alone at the gate.

Sirius' legs really did hurt.

Despite Yaxley's protestations about needing to get up to the house quickly, not a lot was happening, and Sirius knew there were more Death Eaters to arrive. He hadn't come for the view of the house. He'd seen it enough times. Hambleton Hall had been the location of many a boring dinner party of his father's friends and acquaintances, or his mother's gossiping circle of pureblood wives. He'd even attended Bellatrix's engagement party here.

That was not a night he wanted to remember.

Most likely a lot of the other people that had been present didn't want to remember it, either.

Now, the old house had become a meeting place for Dark wizards, and, if their intelligence from the last war had been correct, frequently hosted Lord Voldemort himself. Sirius could only assume Bellatrix had a lot to do with that. The Lestrange brothers were into Voldemort, that was evidently the case, but Bellatrix had always seemed to have a bit of an excessive love for old snake-faced.

She would absolutely be the type to host parties in his honour and to love every second of getting to lord it over the other Death Eaters.

Not many people in his family were great. The bar was pretty low, if Sirius was absolutely honest. But Bellatrix pushed things a bit too far even for the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

He tried to stretch his legs out without either falling over backwards or making a lot of noise. Lestrange was still on the gate, wand visible, and over in the trees on the other side of the entrance path he knew would be James Potter, one of the Prewetts, and Marlene McKinnon. He'd forgotten exactly which Prewett had been sent on the mission.

Sirius had never been much of a one for reconnaissance missions. He'd fucked one up pretty badly, or would do in about a month, and that had got him out of a fair few of them afterwards.

Moody had accused him of fucking it up on purpose for exactly that reason.

He'd shouted a lot about 'responsibility' and 'doing things we don't like for the good of everyone' and 'entitlement'.

Sirius had felt that very unfair. This war was something he had taken incredibly seriously. He and his friends were in danger, and he wasn't going to have risked their lives just to get out of sitting on his arse in a field or behind a wall or lurking under a bridge or whatever this week's hiding spot of choice was. He hadn't wanted to endanger anyone on that mission, he'd made a mistake.

Even if he had complained about said mission for six solid hours to James and Peter beforehand.

Alastor Moody might not have appreciated Sirius' subsequent rant about exactly how seriously he was taking it, either.

They'd all been so on edge, all of the time. Everyone had been almost looking for a reason to blow their tops at one another, because a bit of shouting and righteous anger at someone else did usually make you feel calmer for a little bit afterwards even if that wasn't why you'd done it in the first place.

This was just dull.

There was a steady stream of Death Eaters arriving by Apparition, greeting Lestrange at the gate, and heading up to the mansion. This he had known would happen, from the information James had given him. The Order members positioned here had managed to get the names of over thirty-five Death Eaters going inside the mansion, which had formed the basis of the hit-list that had been used over the next three and a bit years.

The Order members had also managed to get themselves involved in a small fight and nearly got themselves discovered, a fact Sirius was hoping to exploit.

In a gap between Death Eaters, Sirius was convinced he heard something moving in the bushes behind him. Almost like something was moving.

He ignored it. The most likely explanation was an animal. They were in the middle of nowhere essentially, after all. If it wasn't that, then one of the Order members was lurking on this side. After all, James had said he'd been in the trees, but Sirius couldn't remember what he'd said about the others.

There was another crack of an Apparition, and Sirius involuntarily tipped forward slightly. It was almost time.

In front of him appeared his brother, Regulus.

The boy looked much as Sirius remembered him. A slight build, neatly cut black hair, and a long, pale face with features similar to Sirius' own. Where Sirius was shorter, Regulus was tall. He wore a long black cloak held with an ornate clasp, clearly well made. His sleeves were rolled up, showing clearly that he did not yet wear the Dark Mark on his arm.

The perfect little pureblood heir, here to make Mummy and Daddy proud. They'd have been beaming with pride when they saw him off, most likely.

The heir himself looked nervous as hell, chewing his lip and spending far too long rearranging the folds of his cloak.

If it all went as Sirius knew it would, Regulus would linger to talk to Lestrange. A couple more Death Eaters would arrive, and then a fight would break out between them and the Order members. Then, and only then, Sirius would act.

"Good evening, Rabastan," said Regulus, politely.

"Evening, Black. You showed, then?"

"I wasn't aware there was any doubt that I wouldn't." Regulus' voice was icy, the way they'd been taught as children to respond to those they considered beneath them or who were casting aspersions.

"I hear things, Black. I'm in the confidences of many influential people. I know things you could only dream of."

"If that's what it takes to make you feel important."

Sirius was distracted from the conversation by another noise behind him. Either this was an incredibly stupid animal, or an incredibly stupid Order member. The Death Eaters would curse quicker than you could say 'I'm a fucking fox, idiot' if they heard anything suspicious, and ask questions later.

Or just Vanish the evidence and get on with their days, if the subject of the curses was beyond questioning. Maybe brag a bit up at the mansion later.

He could sympathise with their movement, though. Crouching had been a mistake. He was fairly sure his left leg had gone to sleep completely, and he needed to move it now. If he needed to fight and fell over on a dead leg, well that was mission over.

A quick wiggle, and he had some feeling back in it at any rate. There had been a bit of noise, but less than whatever else was here alongside him had made.

He tuned back in to the conversation, reminding himself of the need to pay attention.

"Well, Black, you'd better put your wand where your mouth is tonight, then."

"Rest assured I will, Lestrange. If you don't believe my commitment to the Dark Lord, that lies with you. The Dark Lord's opinion of me is the only one that matters."

Yes, because you don't care about your brother's opinion, Sirius thought. He stabbed the grass with the end of his wand, digging it down into the dirt.

"Bella says you need to prove yourself."

"I have done what is in my power, being until recently underage and under the Trace. And I'm awaiting my chance to do more now I am free of that little restriction. Or would you have preferred I was caught instantly?"

The best bit about Death Eaters was that none of them trusted one another. The Order, however haphazard some of them were and however much Albus occasionally attempted to withhold information, at least tried to work together. Death Eaters were constantly trying to get higher in Voldemort's estimation, and they were generally more than willing to trample someone down with the proverbial Hippogriff if they thought it would help.

Rabastan Lestrange was clearly one of those.

With a loud crack, a third Death Eater arrived to disrupt Regulus and Rabastan Lestrange's argument. James' voice sounded in Sirius' head as he eyed the new arrival.

 _"_ _Dolohov was there",_ James had said, sitting in the kitchen at the Order's current headquarters nursing a pint of mead and his injured arm. " _Great ugly brute, he is. He nearly took down Marlene, some purple curse that I didn't recognise the incantation for, it was only a lucky block that saved her. She says she didn't block it, but she must have done instinctively. Bloody lucky. The first one seared into a tree and the whole thing went down instantly. It was something else. He did my arm in too, though that was that Snape spell."_

"Good evening," said Regulus to the new arrival. "I don't believe I've made your acquaintance." He held out his wand hand to Dolohov. Oh, he really was the perfect little pureblood. It made Sirius want to puke a little bit.

"Antonin Dolohov," said the man, extending his own hand. "You must be the decent Black. I had the pleasure of meeting your brother a few weeks ago."

There was a funny flicker in Regulus' eyes at that.

Sirius automatically rubbed his shoulder. He well remembered that little skirmish. Sirius, Remus, James and Peter had been tasked with causing a diversion so a few of the more experienced members could get inside a building. They'd done it a little too well, and drawn six Death Eaters down on them. He could still feel the break in his collarbone Dolohov had given him, especially when it was cold.

"I trust you gave him what he deserved," said Regulus, the flicker gone and his voice almost too even.

Fucking bastard. Sirius had half a mind to turn right around now and go home.

"Oh, I gave him enough to think about for now," said Dolohov. His smile was uneven, giving him a distinct sense of untrustworthiness. "I'll go back for that dirty blood traitor and his little pet half-breed some other time."

"Perhaps Black could solve that problem for us himself," said Lestrange.

"I plan to do whatever the Dark Lord most needs of me," said Regulus.

Well, at least Regulus hadn't exactly agreed to go out and kill him, Sirius thought. That had to be something.

He wondered what the three men would do if they knew the Sirius Black they were discussing was so close by. They hardly would have expected him to be. Regulus knew he'd never been able to hold himself back, and would have fully expected a hidden Sirius to have burst out of hiding by now, wand aloft and fighting.

It was quite interesting acting like someone else, for a change.

Hard fucking work, though. He couldn't understand how people could do this all the time.

A light was making its way down from Hambleton Hall itself towards the gate. It was a conjured light, not a spell Sirius knew to be Dark in nature. Perhaps the caster could lend it their own style, though, as the light glowed an ominous green instead of any colour of light Sirius had seen before.

When he saw who was carrying it, the colouring made sense. Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix's husband.

"Bella says you're to come up," he said to the group. "She's particularly anxious to see you, Regulus."

'I'm waiting for Nott," said Rabastan Lestrange.

"He won't show," said Dolohov.

"He will," said Rabastan, with confidence and a slight cackle. "I promised to curse him worse than the Dark Lord would if he didn't."

"Bella is getting impatient," said Rodolphus.

"Bella's always impatient." Sirius very much doubted Rabastan would have said that to her face.

"That's my wife you're talking about."

"What's that?" Rabastan Lestrange was staring at the bushes on the other side of the gate to where Sirius was hidden, his wand outstretched.

"Animals, no doubt," said Regulus. "If you'll insist on living in the middle of nowhere, you'll get animals."

"Yeah, well, they're getting bolder. Not the first time I've heard them out here of late."

"Move somewhere sensible then."

"When I marry, I'm tempted. Leave Bella and my brother to it." Rabastan glared again in the direction of the noise. Rodolphus curled his lip, clearly unimpressed with the way his brother was discussing him and his wife.

A crack of Apparition, and yet another Death Eater arrived on the path in front of the gate.

"Nott," said Lestrange, inclining his head ever so slightly to the small, rat-faced man.

"Lestrange," said Nott, with a larger nod. "Lestrange. Dolohov. Black."

"Have you quite finished here?" asked Rodolphus. "Bella and the Dark Lord are most keen to get on to get on with the business of tonight."

"Come along, guest of honour," said Dolohov, to Regulus. "We can be your escort. I hear that's something you pureblood require at important events."

Four of the men made to walk off, but Nott hung behind. His small eyes were trained on a gap in the trees.

"What's that?" he asked, sharply.

"Likely more animals," said Regulus. "Rodolphus is right. Our presence is required in the Hall."

"Did you check, though?" asked Nott. "Fat bunch a trouble we'd be in if there was intruders, tonight."

"Check if you want," said Regulus, looking bored.

Sirius, as quietly as he could, reached for his wand. There was another movement in the bushes behind him.

He hoped he wouldn't regret ignoring that.

Rabastan Lestrange and Nott were approaching the bushes now, wands in hand. Regulus hung back, affecting a relaxed demeanour. Sirius thought that his brother clutched his wand a little too tightly, and that his face was too set to be as unconcerned as he was playing.

"There's nothing, lads," said Nott, making to turn around.

Sirius let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

"Hang on," said Rabastan. He prodded something with his foot, and there was a thud and a crack of a branch. "Intruders. Invisible."

Simultaneously, Sirius and the five Death Eaters leapt into action. Creeping to the north, he slipped past the gateway and hugged the outer wall of the Hall's grounds, staying out of the line of fire. He wanted to be able to work spells without a danger of hitting any Order members through the line of Death Eaters, and he needed to be close enough to Regulus.

As he moved, he felt a tug on the back of his jacket, and brushed it off.

Hermione would kill him, when she found out about this. He wondered how long he could hide it from her.

Curses were flying everywhere. Nott was firing them wildly into the trees, not aiming at anything particular and going for quantity over any particular power behind them. The two Lestranges worked together, covering for each other which allowed them better accuracy against their invisible opponents. Dolohov was almost lazy, but Sirius knew he was dangerous.

Regulus fought as if this was his first proper battle. Sirius had seen his brother get into fights at school, including with him and his friends, but this hadn't prepared Regulus for the realities of a duel where one side was invisible and both were fighting to seriously injure. He was holding his own, and unlikely to go down, but he wasn't going to be taking anyone with him.

The invisible Order members were giving as good as they got.

Careful not to be detected, and therefore give away his advantage that nobody knew he was there, Sirius began to add his own spells into the mix.

He shot a Stunner at the Death Eaters, causing the two Lestranges to leap out of its way and pause in their spellcasting. He used the break to send a series of branches to fly at their ranks. The aim was not to cause damage, as such, but to cause enough confusion that he would be able to get in amongst them.

There was another tug on his jacket. He twisted, to use a Severing Charm on whatever had got itself stuck there. He was halfway through the incantation when there was a scream from the Order's side and a purple curse was flying into their midst. Sirius ran forwards, half losing his jacket to the increased tugging.

The purple curse from Dolohov hit a tree and the whole thing disintegrated in front of Sirius' eyes. That almost threw him. So did the hiss of 'don't you dare!' in his ear, which he thought he must be imagining.

When the second purple curse left Dolohov's wand, Sirius threw the strongest Shield Charm he could muster in front of where he believed the Order members were. The curse and the shield collided, causing a rebound. Dolohov threw himself to the floor to avoid his own spell, and Sirius with a shaking wand Stunned him where he lay.

The seconds after that were chaos. With one of their own down, the Death Eaters doubled the intensity of their fighting. The air was thick with curses, and Sirius heard the shout of " _Crucio!_ " from the Lestrange brothers more than once. The Order weren't dropping their end, but lacked the usage of Unforgiveables.

Sirius held back for a moment. He'd protected Marlene, which he had wanted to ensure happened, and now he wanted to wait. James said both he and the Prewett had uncloaked, and he was intending to use the disturbance that caused to act.

He was distracted by another hiss in his ear.

"Sirius fucking Black, I don't know what you're planning but you're going to stop right now."

It appeared he was doing a shit job at hiding this from Hermione.

"Trust me," he hissed back.

"I will not," she said. Her hand made contact with his arm, and he yanked it away from her before she could try anything stupid like Apparating him from the fight. Running forward, he felt the pull on his jacket again and realised it must be something to do with her.

He had no idea how she'd followed him. He'd deal with that later.

One of the Lestranges was down, wailing on the floor with some kind of pus-filled blisters over his face. James' work. Sirius had laughed when James said he'd used that spell. Moody had huffed, saying the time for third-year hexes was past.

James' cloak was off. He tumbled forwards, almost losing his glasses, but recovered fast and managed to prevent the blistered Lestrange from getting back up. He was the prime target now, as the only visible Order member, and Sirius stepped in to help his old friend.

It was comforting just fighting alongside James, even if only Sirius knew he was there. It would be better if they could go back to the head quarters together later and share that mead. He'd have to settle for what he could, which was protecting his friend.

Sirius got the other Lestrange nicely distracted with some interesting Transfiguration, making the ground around him transform into a bed of snakes. That would keep him busy for a moment.

Regulus, assuming James had caused that, aimed green flames at him in response, which James leapt away from. Instead, the fire collided with a patch of air next to him, and within less than a second a flaming invisibility cloak was flying through the air and Gideon Prewett was revealed. Not everyone could tell the difference, but Sirius had always been able to.

" _Sectumsempra!"_ shouted Dolohov, and James' arm was opened from shoulder to wrist in a single slash. Blood spattered against Sirius.

The warmth of his friends blood on his face made something snap within Sirius. He roared and started forwards, throwing every spell he could think of into the depleted Death Eater ranks and completely ignoring the strength of the pull on the back of his jacket. Regulus fell to one of Sirius' spells, and Dolohov to something cast by Gideon Prewett, and Nott to a spell that could only have been cast by Marlene McKinnon, the only Order member remaining out of sight.

Regulus and Dolohov were struggling back up, Nott remained down and screaming. Sirius was still charging, most of the way to his brother when there was a final tug on his jacket and then the feeling of a body barrelling into his own from behind.

He was on the floor, inches from his brother's legs as Regulus pulled himself to his feet. Sirius scrabbled in the dirt for his brother, as on his back Hermione swore softly into his ear and reached for a decent hold on his body.

Sirius felt the distinct feeling of Apparition, and tried his last hope.

" _Accio Regulus!"_

His stomach was whirling, his body being squeezed away from the fight, and his hands were empty except for his wand.


	10. Chapter 10: The Marking

**Chapter Ten: The Marking**

 _Regulus_

 _August 1978, Hambleton Hall, Kent_

Regulus Black hauled himself up from the dirt, panting. The fight seemed to be over. At least two, more likely three members of the Order of the Phoenix had been here, including his brother's friend Potter, and all of them had disappeared. That was going to make nobody happy.

He began the process of righting himself. His only injury was a small scrape on his arm, which took little effort to magically heal. His cloak was dirty, that needed cleaning. The robes underneath had suffered no damage.

Nott was still screaming on the floor. He had started all of this, and he could not even adequately finish it or look after himself afterwards.

Next to him, Rodolphus Lestrange had extracted himself from the conjured snakes with little hassle, and was pulling his brother to his feet. Dolohov was looking at Nott with distaste.

"I'd be inclined to leave him there, if not for the importance of tonight," said Regulus.

"I would be too, little shit. What was he hit with?" asked Dolohov, prodding Nott with his foot.

"I don't know. _Finite Incantatum_ ," said Regulus, and Nott stopped screaming.

"Get up," grunted Rabastan Lestrange, looking much the worse for the fight with half of the pus-filled blisters still on his face.

"I always was the better looking brother," said Rodolphus, looking at Rabastan with a laugh that nobody else shared.

The younger Lestrange brother made a noise somewhere between a hiss and a growl, turned his wand to his face and began to mutter a counter-curse while occasionally shooting angry glares at the others. Nott had managed to get himself up from the ground. He had a nasty cut on his leg, and walked with a limp.

Regulus turned from the others and looked up at Hambleton Hall. This was not exactly the way he had expected his night to go when Lucius had told him to report to the mansion for his Marking ceremony.

But then, he had not expected any of this. Three years ago he had been the second son of a prominent pureblood family, with little more expected of him than to marry well, although not as well as Sirius, produce some spares for the family line, and to assist his brother with the running of the family from time to time. Sirius had been difficult, their mother had told Regulus, but she was confident he would come back in line eventually.

Sirius had not. He'd run off to live with James Potter and the blood-traitors and look where that had left Regulus.

"Ready, boy?" asked Dolohov, appearing at his shoulder.

"As ever," said Regulus, feeling anything but.

The rather motley group made their way up the gravel path to the Lestrange's mansion in silence. Dolohov clearly wanted to be making jokes, or at least to be ribbing Regulus a little more, but one of the Lestrange brothers had given him a look that meant death.

Regulus supposed they wouldn't actually kill him. Death Eaters, after all, were only allowed to kill other Death Eaters on You-Know-Who's orders. Lucius had told him there were high penalties for disobeying their leader, but he'd assured Regulus you were only punished if you had done something that justified it. Lucius had said You-Know-Who was firm, but fair.

Although, given what Regulus knew, he thought it was entirely possible that the Lestrange brothers could kill Dolohov if they wanted to and make it look like the Order's work or an accident. Supposedly, their father had killed his father for his inheritance. And he'd got away with it, too, although rumour was the Ministry knew but had been too scared to act. It was of course polite to pretend that one did not know of the scandal, but every pureblood in society did.

The Black family had its own share of scandals. Sirius included. It was all that had been discussed in the Slytherin common room at Hogwarts when the heir to the rich, famous Black family had been publicly disowned, especially coming right on the dragon's tail of Andromeda's disownment. At least they'd had notice of Sirius' little scandal coming. Andromeda had given every sign that she was the same as the rest of them before coming home one evening with a single sparkling diamond on an engagement ring from that Mudblood. And that was just his generation.

Regulus was determined not to be a scandal. The Black name needed a heir, and he was the only one left to provide that. It was his duty. His mother was already doing the hard work of sifting through the eligible pureblood women, and he would be able to begin meeting those his mother deemed most suitable at Christmas. They could then marry as soon as they had both left Hogwarts. He would do what Sirius had been too selfish to manage.

Rodolphus Lestrange, leading the group, came to a stop a few feet from the front door.

"We tell him nothing."

Regulus nodded. They'd come off worst, and nobody wanted to admit to coming off worst in a fight.

Nott flinched visibly at Rodolphus' words. Rabastan and Dolohov did and said nothing. Ignoring whatever that was supposed to be, Regulus pushed open the ornate wooden doors to Hambleton Hall and stalked down the marble-floored hallway. It was after he'd gone seven or eight feet that he stopped, realising that he did not know which of the reception rooms the meeting was to be found in.

"Rodolphus?" he asked. He swallowed any fear that might have a chance of entering his voice. "Where am I required to be?" All the confidence required of him was present in his tone.

"Ah yes," said Rodolphus. "Wait in here, we will call you." He pushed open a black door and ushered Regulus into a small, luxuriously appointed office. The door shut behind him.

Without anything else to do except wait in silence, Regulus perused the tall mahogany bookshelves that lined the room. Many of the titles were ones they had at home, thick leather-bound tomes on economics, politics and complex magic. He settled on one he'd seen on his father's bookshelf at home, 'The Mudbloods and the Wizangamot: British wizarding politics 1895-1930'. He'd been wanting to take a look at that one since Lucius had recommended it to him a few weeks ago.

Crossing the room, Regulus settled himself on the chair in front of the desk. He felt it would be a presumptuous to take the seat behind it, which was a large wing-back chair fitted with velvet cushions, and very much was the chair of the head of the household. The seat Regulus chose also had velvet cushions, but was smaller and much less fancy, and the one dedicated to visitors. Regulus did not need to be told all of this, of course. He had been brought up properly.

The book explained a lot about their current situation. Things in wizarding society had began to change once Mudbloods had been elected to the Wizengamot, and those changes were not for the better. Regulus knew most of the examples already, of course, from discussions with his friends and his father about the state of the wizarding world, but the book gave him further information. He had not realised that the Mudbloods had removed the laws to allow one to only employ pureblood wizards in his business. As if the Ministry should have any say in who a private business chose to employ.

He was onto the second chapter of the book when the door opened once more. This time, it was Lucius Malfoy that stood in the doorway, dressed impeccably in black and silver robes as usual and holding some strange kind of stick.

"Ah, Regulus," said Lucius. "The Dark Lord is ready for you now."

Regulus replaced the book on the shelf, intending to locate his father's copy that evening to read further.

"Is that a part of the ceremony?" he asked Lucius, indicating the stick.

"This?" asked Lucius. "Oh, no. This is just something I picked up in Borgin and Burkes yesterday. I quite like it, don't you?"

"It's very stately," said Regulus, stifling a very un-pureblooded laugh. The cane was ridiculous, but Regulus was not going to say that to Lucius. He needed the man on his side, as he had been very helpful to him in recommending Regulus to You-Know-Who without requiring a favour in return.

"Thank you," said Lucius, puffing his chest slightly. "This way. You're not nervous, are you?"

Regulus was not clear on why every Death Eater he'd seen here tonight was so intent on asking him that question. It was as if they thought he was weak. He was the Black family heir, and he was anything but weak. He was putting himself in front of You-Know-Who voluntarily, in order to be of service and to bring the Black family back to its rightful place at the head of wizarding society, and there was nothing weak about that.

"Of course not," he answered. "I'm doing what has to be done."

"And rightly so," said Lucius.

They had arrived outside a set of double doors. Lucius flicked his wand, and the silver rings twisted and the doors opened in front of them.

Regulus stepped inside the ballroom, which he remembered well from trips here in the recent past. Bellatrix's wedding reception had been held in the dark-painted, high-ceilinged room, which had been bedecked with floral arrangements and swathes of emerald green fabric. It had been Regulus' first formal event as heir of the Black family, and he had done his best to impress. He'd danced with the Crouch girl, Elsie, who he'd very much liked, and the third daughter of the Fawley family, Adeline, who he had liked better.

He ought to remember to ask his mother to make sure Adeline and Elsie made it onto the list for potential wives.

Of course, he had also attended Bellatrix's engagement party here, and that had been a much less enjoyable occasion. Sirius had been on the outs with the family then, and he had been sure to make everyone in the room aware of that fact.

Today, the room was cleared of tables, chairs and other furniture, except for a large table at the front of the room. There were no elaborate decorations, just burning candles on the walls and You-Know-Who's symbol illuminated above the table. Death Eaters lined the sides of the room, all in variations of black robes and all wearing strange bronze masks. Some of the masks were plain, others patterned intricately or engraved with runes of protection and hiding.

Lucius snapped his mask to his face, and escorted Regulus down the line of Death Eaters towards the three people at the front of the room. Most of the masked people were men, and Regulus was sure he could have named at least half of them with the masks on and more without. A few women graced their ranks; he recognised Nott's sister, who had married a Burke, and the Rowle sisters Mercy and Euphemia.

And Bellatrix was clearly standing at the front of the room, her black curls falling around the sides of her mask, alongside Rodolphus Lestrange and the man who could only have been the Lord Voldemort that Regulus was intending to join.

Many of the Death Eaters nodded to Lucius and Regulus as they made their slow and steady way down the room, especially those furthest towards the back. Those closer to the front were more guarded, watching the two walking past but not acknowledging them in any way. There was no other way of distinguishing between those at each end of the room; everywhere was a mixture of old and young, those Regulus was certain were pureblooded and those of half-blood birth, the few women dotted in amongst the men.

Before he was ready to be there, Regulus passed the last Death Eaters and reached the front of the room. Lucius melted away into the lines of Death Eaters, and Regulus was left standing in front of the man he had come here to join.

"Regulus Black," said Lord Voldemort, his voice smooth. It was not a question, just a statement of fact.

"My Lord," said Regulus. He bowed his head and offered his wand handle first, the way Lucius had told him to.

"Good boy," said Lord Voldemort. He did not touch Regulus' wand, and motioned for him to replace it into his pocket. "Lucius has prepared you well, I see. Are you ready to join me and my little band of friends and comrades in arms, Mr Black?"

"I am."

A cheer erupted from the massed ranks of the Death Eaters. The ones at the back of the room had folded in to form a semicircle with Regulus at its centre, a semicircle of black fabric and bronze masks that reflected the light of the candles. Through the eye-holes in the masks, Regulus could see all of the eyes in the room were focused on him.

"Do you understand what you are getting yourself in for, I wonder?"

"Lucius has explained, my Lord."

"Good. And why do you wish to join me?"

"I want to do the right thing by my family. I want a society where it is no longer shameful to be a pureblood and a Black. Mudbloods have no place thinking themselves as equals to a wizard with true wizarding blood. I want to be able to stand up and say that I believe in the sanctity of wizarding society and of the old ways."

Lucius had told him the question would be asked, and had helped him rehearse the answer. They had gone through many variations of it, and this was what they had settled on as the one that most closely represented his views and sounded the best.

"Your family. You have a brother, I believe?"

"No. I don't."

Lord Voldemort laughed. It was a laugh like no other that Regulus had ever heard, slightly tinkly with a tinge of malice. "No brother? I had heard you had one, a blood-traitor by the name of Sirius."

"Sirius is no brother of mine," Regulus spat. "He ceased to be my brother on the day he walked out of our family."

Regulus felt a soft touch of something, a nudge in his head. He had been warned that the Lord often used Leglilimency against his new recruits, to check for spies in the midst, and Regulus thought that sounded eminently sensible. He had learnt the basics of Occulmency from his father, but he had nothing to hide here. He pushed forward his memories of Sirius; the day he had left the Black family home in disgrace and interactions with him in the halls of Hogwarts afterwards that showed Regulus had no love for his brother. Not now, anyway. They had liked each other as children, but that was with a childish love and not with the knowledge that Regulus had now.

"I see that you speak the truth."

"I would never speak anything less to you, my Lord."

"See that it remains so." For the first time in their interaction Regulus detected a note of harshness in the Lord's voice, although he almost thought he had imagined it as by the time the Dark Lord spoke next it was back to his usual honeyed tones. "But you have always been loyal to our cause, have you not?"

"I have, my Lord."

"Lucius tells me you are not yet out of Hogwarts, and I did wonder if it was wise to bring one so young in and one so under the influence of Albus Dumbledore."

"I am seventeen, my Lord. I am of age, and I am keen to fight. As for Dumbledore," Regulus had to bite back the Professor he had always added in front of the old Headmaster's name, which he felt would not be welcome here, "I have never felt the old man had much influence over me."

"And who do you feel influences you, Black?"

"My mother," he began, until he heard the laughter of the Death Eaters behind and around him. "My father. Orion Black, a believer in your cause. Lucius Malfoy, who brought me here tonight. My dear cousin Bellatrix. Horace Slughorn, my Head of House."

He hoped that was the correct answer. He had felt he ought to mention Bellatrix, the way she watched him with her dark eyes from her place of honour next to her Lord. She claimed the Dark Lord trusted her above others.

"A worthy group. I have great respect for all of those witches and wizards. Your mother is quite fearsome in her belief in the Black family, is she not?"

"She is."

"Now, Regulus. You are of the blood to join me, and we would be most honoured to have a son of one of our most distinguished families in our midst. You have the references. Lucius, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Severus and several others have vouched for you as being of a likeness with us and a worthy member of our cause. So far, your actions have been befitting of a Death Eater. What would you wish to gain, from joining us?"

"To gain?" This was not a question Regulus has been expecting.

"Yes. You are a Slytherin, are you not? Do you not have a healthy personal ambition?"

"I am. I do. I wish to gain… I want to make my family strong again."

"And you shall. See what you can do about that former brother of yours, won't you?"

"I shall, my Lord."

"And now, we have one last test before you can join our ranks, Mr Black."

Regulus gulped. Lucius had not been allowed to tell him what the final test would be. Regulus was imagining something incredibly painful, like the initiation test to get into the club for Slytherin fifth years and above.

"Tell us your deepest secret, Regulus Black. And remember, the Dark Lord knows when you are lying to him."

Bellatrix smiled, and folded her hands neatly in front of her. She knew of what he would have to say. But say it he would, because if the Black family honour rested on this then he would do what he must.

"My Lord, I regret it, but…" he took a deep breath, placing his hand on his wand in his robes pocket to steady himself. "I have had a relationship with a Mudblood girl."

The room erupted into laughter, loud and raucous laughter that bounced from the ceiling of the ballroom and surrounded Regulus.

"Did you love her, my boy?"

"No. She was nice enough, for the while." Regulus thought of the girl, a Hufflepuff called Sharon. She was blonde and skinny, like the girls he had always gone for, with a quick wit. They had slept together six times in a broom cupboard on the third floor over the course of a month, and then she had dumped him when he had refused to take her to Hogsmeade. She had accused him of being unwilling to be seen with her, and given that it was the truth Regulus had found he had little to say in response.

"You are not the first in my service to have been with a Mudblood. Some here have even thought they loved one." The Death Eater that Regulus was certain was Severus Snape, in the middle of the ranks, shifted uncomfortably. "We do not judge that. If you were to marry her… that would be a problem. But they do have their uses, Mudbloods, and I am not one to deny my followers enjoyment where they can find it."

More laughter from the Death Eaters.

"I think you'll do nicely here. Tell me. Are you ready to pledge your life to the cause?"

"I am."

"Bellatrix." The woman, who had been demurely watching events with a slight smirk on her face, moved towards the table behind her. "Now, Regulus, I hear this spell hurts a little bit. I would not know. It is of my own invention, and I have never used it on myself. But I can assure you the benefits are more than worth it.

"It binds you to me, my dear Regulus, and to the others that you see in here today. We will be like the brothers you should have had. And sisters, of course." A nod to Bellatrix, who had returned with three vials of potion and a silver dagger. "You will be tied to me for life, and you will do my bidding. In return, I will grant you what you desire; the chance to redeem your family and wizarding society.

"Regulus Black, are you prepared to join me?"

"Yes."

Bellatrix was approaching him with the dagger and the potions. It was indicated for him to clasp hands with the Dark Lord, as if swearing an Unbreakable Vow. Lucius had told him it was not, and that he would not die if he broke it but that it would still be extremely unwise. Rodolphus stood beside them, wand out.

"Do you promise to obey me, to come when called, and to do what I ask in a timely manner, even if that is something that you would not ordinarily wish to do?"

"I promise," said Regulus. Bellatrix handed him the first vial of potion, and he drank.

"Do you promise to uphold the principles of our creed wherever possible, stamping out the Mudblood curse on our pure blood and the stain on our society?"

"I promise." He drank the second vial handed to him by Bellatrix with slightly shaky hands.

"Do you promise to be a Death Eater for life?"

"I promise." Regulus took the last vial and threw it back down his throat.

There was a flash of green light from Rodolphus' wand, which formed into a snake-like cable around the hand of the Dark Lord and Regulus' own hand twisting and turning. There was a heat coming off it, not overwhelming but enough to be noticed, and Regulus felt the magic brush his skin as the snake-cable wound tighter.

Around them, the Death Eaters had closed their ranks and formed a tight circle. Each masked witch or wizard held their wands aloft and were casting a web of silver over the tops of Regulus and the Dark Lord. Bellatrix and Rodolphus had slipped backwards to join the circle, to join the faceless wall of bronze and black.

They were chanting, chanting spells Regulus had never heard before perfectly in unison. There was the thrum of magic in the background, a noise like the bass line in one of the dreadful wizarding rock bands Sirius had enjoyed and played loudly at home to irritate their parents.

The Dark Lord placed the tip of the silver dagger onto Regulus' arm. It had a serpent handle with an emerald for an eye, a Slytherin's dagger if ever he had seen one. There was the sharp prick of the blade piercing his skin, and a spare vial clinked as a few droplets of his blood were collected and placed safely into the Dark Lord's robes. He took a step back, a quiet smile on his face.

It was then that Regulus felt the pain.

The dagger on his arm was moving, directed by the Dark Lord's wand, but Regulus barely noticed. There could have been one blade in his arm or a thousand for the pain he was feeling. His body was falling in on itself. His brain had shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and exploded across the room. It was like nothing he had ever felt.

He would not scream.

Regulus did allow himself to sink to his knees. The knife stayed steady, doing it's work. The pain wasn't coming from his arm. Not more so than anywhere else. It was everywhere. In his feet, in his chest, his head, his legs, his hands. He was ripping apart and being forced back together at the same time.

And he could not think.

The chanting was louder.

The magic was thrumming.

He was being split into two.

A pain erupted in his chest, a thousand knives bearing into him with one movement. Regulus clutched at his chest to steady himself and close his eyes.

He would not scream.

Bellatrix shouted, a light exploded. Regulus closed his eyes. He would not scream.

He could take nothing more, but it was still coming.

A pain he could not describe.

Chanting.

Thrumming.

Light.

Noise.

The knife was hot and then it was cold, heating his blood and freezing it.

He had never felt such pain.

Pain.

The.

Worst.

Pain.

He struggled to breathe. It was coming in ragged gasps. His head was light. It was exploding.

He reached for his wand. If he could curse his feet off they would no longer be on fire. Curse off his own chest. Not the arm.

And then it stopped. Regulus' arms flopped to his sides and his eyes opened.

"You did well," said the soft, smooth voice of the Dark Lord. "You did not scream. That is… exceptional. Welcome to the Death Eaters, Black."

With a ruffle of his cloak, the Dark Lord was gone.

In his place stood Lucius and Bellatrix. He hauled Regulus up from the ground, and Bellatrix handed him his own bronze mask. As he took it, the metal flickered with a light almost in recognition of its new owner. He wondered why, but there was no space in his brain for questions. It felt like a fleet of Doxies had taken refuge in there, flapping around and nipping at the inside of his skull.

"My dear cousin, I knew you would not let us down!" Bellatrix wrapped him in an uncharacteristic hug. Regulus had barely seen her show this level of affection to her own husband.

"Congratulations, Regulus," said Lucius. "Take this."

He was handing Regulus a glass of amber liquid, almost certainly Firewhisky. In the hope that it would sort out the feelings in his brain and in his body, Regulus drank the glass down in one. The usual burn of the alcohol on his throat barely registered.

Lucius clapped him on the back.

"Come, now, I must make some introductions," he said. "Everyone will want to meet you. The Black heir and the newest recruit to the cause. You've done your family and all of us proud."

His family. Yes, his mother and father would be rightfully proud of how he had conducted himself. They were too old to join, they had felt, but had more than approved of Regulus' intentions. This was about them, and about the heirs he would produce, and a little bit of pain in that would not prevent him from getting to the ending he had in mind.


	11. Chapter 11: Silencing Charms

_Hermione_

 _August 1978, Saltburn_

She landed in a heap on the hard concrete floor of the alleyway behind their house, with Sirius somehow both on top of and underneath her. She wasn't used to Apparating with an unwilling and much heavier person. It was almost certain that her elbow would bruise and most likely her leg, too. Still, she could heal that, and she would not have been able to heal the effects of whatever it was Sirius had been up to.

Sirius was fighting to extract himself and get to his feet. She did the same, ending upright with her back against a fence. Her elbow was bleeding slightly.

He was glowering at her from across the alley, splattered with blood and his jeans ripped at the knee. The hair that had looked as though it was brushed now looked as though he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. She reflected that he essentially had, or across a muddy patch of bushes and undergrowth backwards at any rate.

"Thank you for the rescue," he spat. "Next time, don't bother."

"You said you weren't going to try this again!"

"I did not. I clearly remember apologising for lying to you, and since then I haven't said anything about my plans."

"You said you were going to the chip shop!" She knew her voice sounded hysterical, it was high and slightly wailing in tone. She didn't find herself able to care.

"I said I might. I still might. Seeing as I've got nothing else to do now thanks to your fucking interfering. Are you always like that? Do you always need to control what everyone else does?" His voice was low and angry, growling out his words as much as speaking them. "Do you routinely follow everyone who is going to the fucking chip shop?"

"Only when I don't trust them!"

"I've told you to trust me. I know what I'm doing! And you know full well what my intentions have always been!"

"And I know you're going to ruin everything if you keep going this way!"

"Oh yeah? Is that definitely what all your calculations and reading have said? Truthfully, Hermione? It's not already all fucking ruined, if you hadn't noticed!"

A window opened in the house behind Hermione, and a blond-haired Muggle woman's head popped out. It was accompanied by the sound of a screaming baby and a wailing child.

"Will you take you take your fucking domestic somewhere else?" she shouted. "I've got a baby that's trying to sleep here, learn some f-ing consideration!"

"We're sorry!" Sirius shouted back, and grabbed Hermione's elbow. "Come on. We should move. She's right. This isn't the place."

"And this isn't finished," Hermione hissed as she allowed herself to be led out of the alleyway and around to the front of their house.

"Of course not," he replied.

Ginny and Luna were in the front room when they opened the door. Luna reading on the squashy brown armchair, and Ginny balancing on one leg in the centre of the room. Occasionally, she would hop from one foot to the other.

"Balance improving exercises," she said as Hermione and Sirius entered the house. She had either failed to notice the glower on Sirus' face, which Hermione was sure was matched on her own, or she didn't care. "Harpies coach makes us do this for up to twenty minutes. Says if we can do this we can stay on our broom whatever happens."

"She has managed eighteen so far," said Luna, peering over her copy of 'Murky: Stories of Ghouls'. "And she's fallen down twice, which she says doesn't count."

"Tell that to someone who cares," said Sirius, with menace. He stomped up the stairs. Several loud thudding sounds came from the upper floor of the house, and then the slam of a door and silence.

"Do I want to know?" Ginny asked, hopping again.

"Probably not," said Hermione. She threw herself down on the sofa. It was important that Ginny knew, and Luna, but it wasn't as if she really wanted to talk about this right now. "I don't even know if I know. Well I do. And it's shit."

"Are you aware that you are talking in riddles?" asked Luna. "Is that what's frustrated Sirius? He does not look happy, does he?"

"Tell me something I don't know," said Hermione.

"Okay." Luna put her book down, neatly folding in a bookmark as she did so. "He's not yet processed how he feels about you."

"About me?" Hermione asked.

"I definitely do want to know, I've decided," said Ginny, thankfully interrupting whatever it was Luna was about to say. She wobbled, and fell over again. "Also, we need to clean this carpet. Mum has a charm that gets all the dust out and sends it out the door in a neat little stream, but when I tried it everything just flew up into my face."

"We've got a vacuum cleaner," said Hermione.

"A what?" asked Luna.

"Dad had one of those. It exploded when he tried to use it and Mum threw it out. Threatened to report him to his own department at the Ministry. Do they really work, then?"

"They do," said Hermione, unsure that she wanted to get into an explanation of how. Arthur Weasley would have an absolute field day in this house, with every Muggle contraption of the 1970s in full working order.

"But that's not exactly the point, is it Hermione?" Luna was staring at her very intently.

"No. Thank you, Luna. I followed Sirius from the house earlier, and grabbed onto him when he Apparated from the alley. He… well… I don't know what exactly he was intending to do but we got involved in a fight between the Order and the Death Eaters outside some huge mansion. Sirius knew they would be there, I think."

"Seriously?" Ginny looked outraged.

"Well, perhaps that is the way he felt was best to deal with the situation he finds himself in." Luna was more thoughtful.

Hermione bristled slightly. "He might think so," she snapped, "but the rest of the world doesn't."

"I'm not sure that you have ever asked us our opinions," said Luna.

"I don't understand half of it," said Ginny. "I'm not sure mine would count for much."

"Luna," said Hermione, her anger increasing again. "You thought we were dead."

"And I still haven't ruled that out," said Luna, calmly. "I just think that perhaps we need to be aware of all of our options and consider all of them equally, not relying on some perceived wisdom about time travel and the other myriad ways we could have arrived here in what we would have assumed to have been the past. And Sirius' past, specifically so. He has at least a chance of having been here before, and we have almost definitely not."

"Yep, didn't understand half of that," said Ginny.

"Do not consider yourself to be stupid, Ginevra," said Luna.

"I'm smarter than Ron," said Ginny, "and that's the standard I've always held myself to. Achievable. I'm also much better at Quidditch than he is, and at relationships. Unfortunately for Hermione."

"Can one person around here stick to the point!" Hermione was losing what little patience she had managed to drag up. Nobody here was stupid, but all of them were proving completely unable to listen to her or to look at things from a scientific point of view. Scientific was the wrong word. Wizarding society had no concept of it. Theoretical. And not one of them could stick to the point.

"Luna, go get Sirius," said Ginny. "Hermione, stay here."

Whether Luna knew what Ginny was intending or not, she did as she was asked. Hermione went to the kitchen and fetched herself a glass of water. Sirius walked into the front room at the same time as Hermione did, and both of them immediately opened their mouths. No sound came out.

"I've used a Silencing Charm on you both," said Ginny smugly, raising her wand to show them. "One of Mum's better techniques. I will lift it when you feel you are ready to talk without shouting at each other or us. Shouting, swearing, interrupting and being needlessly rude will result in me Silencing you again. Understood?"

Sirius and Hermione glared at one another, and then at Ginny who laughed.

"I may not understand the theory of time travel," she said, "but I have a few tricks up my sleeve."

Hermione fully appreciated right now that Ginny was the daughter of Molly Weasley. And that both of them were related to Fred and George.

Sirius flung himself down onto the sofa, and lay there unmoving with his arms crossed. Hermione took a seat in the chair Luna had vacated, and Luna happily sat cross-legged on a patch of carpet.

It was a ridiculous idea though, she thought. Talking to Sirius was not going to change anything. She had tried that, and it had resulted in him avoiding her and doing what he was going to do anyway. She still had no idea what he had been intending that evening, or even where they had travelled to. Or what the point of it all had been except to cause more, unspecified, future disasters.

Perhaps she should try asking that. If it resulted in shouting, Ginny could just silence him again and at least she would have tried to have done something constructive with the man.

Hermione raised her hand. Ginny gave a small, slightly triumphant smile, and waved her wand to remove the Silencing Charm.

"Sirius, exactly what were you planning tonight?"

Ginny looked at him, and removed the Charm on Sirius with a warning glance.

"I was going to make sure my brother did not take the Dark Mark."

There were no Silencing Charms in place in the room, but nobody spoke.

Hermione couldn't see the logic in his plans. He'd said that he couldn't forgive his brother. Ginny appeared to be waiting for Hermione to react. And Luna was humming, almost as if she'd worked that out for herself.

But Sirius had said he'd wanted to help Regulus. And as a seventeen-year-old schoolboy who hadn't yet taken the Dark Mark, perhaps he hadn't yet done anything that would need to be forgiven. It was still a stupid idea, but perhaps there was some logic to it after all.

With everyone else quiet, Sirius continued. "James was there, tonight, and last time around he told me that Regulus had been present tonight and that something big was going to happen. The Death Eaters were having an event, or a ceremony. Regulus did not have the Mark on his arm tonight, but we saw him in a fight just before he went back to Hogwarts, before he will go back, in a few weeks, and he did. This was likely to be my last chance to prevent my brother from becoming a Death Eater." His voice was flat and without emotion, but his body was shaking slightly.

"Where were we?" Hermione asked.

"Hambleton Hall. The Lestrange ancestral home, and therefore Bellatrix's place. Voldemort used to spend a lot of time there."

"Shit," said Ginny. "I'm sorry, Sirius. That must be a horrible thing to know, that your brother has just been Marked. If it was one of mine, I'd want to help them. Or kill them. Maybe both."

"Is Hermione sorry?" If eyes alone could cast spells, Hermione was sure that curses were coming her way.

"I am sorry, but there's nothing we could have done without…"

"Show me the proof," he said.

Hermione took a deep breath. She couldn't be the first one to lose her cool, not when Sirius was actually talking for once.

"I don't have any proof," she said finally.

"Exactly." His arms flopped down to his sides, and he closed his eyes. "There is no proof that anything we do now will change anything, and there is no proof that it won't change just by us being here. I'll be completely honest and say there is no proof of it not all fucking up if we try, at least on the basis of your calculations."

"You read my notes."

"You read my notepad. Equal violations of privacy, I'd say, and I only read your notes yesterday when you were out with Ginny."

"Let's not get into who screwed up and betrayed the other one's trust first," said Ginny.

Hermione felt that was unfair. She had violated his privacy, she supposed, but she'd done it for a very good reason. It wasn't like she was snooping to find out who he fancied, or to copy his homework, or any other of the myriad reasons her dorm mates at Hogwarts had had for rummaging through each others' trunks.

However, she couldn't deny that what Sirius had said was true. All of her research had lead to one conclusion, which was that there was no consensus on what their presence in the past would do.

"He's right, isn't he, Hermione?" said Luna.

She was forced to consider that Luna may well also have read her notes. That wasn't necessarily surprising, as Luna would read almost anything. She wished she could say that Luna and Sirius had likely drawn the wrong conclusions, but they were both intelligent and they had reached the exact same conclusion that she had reached. This was all such a mess.

Every other person in the room had fixed her with an expectant look. Sirius had even propped himself up a little bit to hear her answer. She had to say something eventually. Well, she didn't. She could do the Sirius approach of ignoring them all for days and then running off, but it wasn't the mature option.

"Yes. He's right."

"Shit."

"Indeed."

"Am I the only one who didn't know?" asked Ginny.

"You mean, are you the only one who didn't wade through my private papers?"

"When you put it that way, it makes me seem less uninformed and much more polite," Ginny smiled.

"You were very polite as an eleven-year-old," said Hermione. "I'm not sure you have been since."

"I feel as though," said Luna, slowly, "that you were the one reminding us of the importance of staying with one point in an argument and working our way through it, Hermione."

Hermione was sure that was the closest anyone had ever got to a telling-off from Luna. But she was right, they had gone off the topic at hand yet again, and it was important that they finished the discussion while everyone was calm and willing to talk. Sirius especially.

"So, Hermione," said Sirius. "Why don't you tell Ginny what you've discovered."

"You said yesterday, that you had discovered that you might be able to get us back, and something about your previous Time-Turner having not had that power, that you had to catch up with yourself."

"Yes," Hermione said. She took a sip of her water. "The Time-Turner I had in my third year… perhaps I had better start at the very beginning. In the late 1700s, a man called Herbert Dinglewood began to experiment with time magic in an ordered way. There had almost certainly been experiments before his, but he was the first to do it in what Muggles would call a scientific manner with proper experimental theory. He built what could be described as the first Time-Turner and used it to travel backwards in time on multiple occasions.

"It's difficult to know what if anything he changed, as the records of wizarding history conflicted with each other enough as it was. The Ministry took an interest, though, and offered Dinglewood a position in the Department of Mysteries, where he continued his experimentation with official funding. There was a period of just over a hundred years which is commonly seen as the era that most of our knowledge on time magic stems from, where experiments were carried out on a regular basis with different forms of time-travel devices and differing lengths of stay in the past and amount of time travelled backwards. The Time-Turners they made could bring you back into the future, then.

"They had never attempted to go back more than a hundred years into their past, and all those who went back more than fifty years or so tended to die fairly soon after. There was an accident in 1899 when an Unspeakable called Eloise Mintumble tried to go back further and became trapped in the 1400s. She died on arrival back in her time period. Her body essentially aged nearly 500 years in one go. So it's possible to travel forwards in time, at least as far as the point where you originally used your time device, if you have the right device, but not necessarily advisable."

"We're well within that time frame, though, aren't we? It's less than fifty years to our future."

"Yes," said Hermione. "Although, things have moved on since then. After Eloise's death, the Ministry passed regulations on time experimentation, and banned everything except for the Time-Turners that I had. They were limited to not be able to go back more than five hours in one stretch, and not more than eight hours back in a twenty-four hour period. Much of the data on previous time experimentation was destroyed, too, the Minister at the time was particularly cautious and organised a mass burning of the whole time section of the Department of Mysteries.

"And then we destroyed what was left the day Sirius died."

"We did. A couple of years ago, the Department of Mysteries expressed an interest in renewing their time travel research. Kingsley was reluctant, but he allowed them some basic experimentation provided it all remained theoretical and no travel was done until their theory and calculations could be independently reviewed."

"What does Kingsley have to do with all of this?" asked Sirius. "The man was an Auror."

"I shouldn't tell you that," said Hermione. "But then I shouldn't be telling any of you this part, as one of the other conditions of the research was that it was to remain strictly confidential. Kingsley didn't want the general public becoming aware that the Ministry was able to travel in time again. He was Minister for Magic at this point, Sirius."

"Always the overachiever," said Sirius.

"Anyway, time research started again in early 2000. Kingsley approved the creation of a time travel device in late 2001, which lead to the arrival of the prototype on my desk. In essence, it's the same as previous Time-Turners, it works via the inclusion of Furstian principles with the essential charms and the time-agent, which in this case is an infusion of Sespilian sand, a Morek stone, and…"

"We aren't going to understand that bit," Ginny interrupted. "Well, Luna or Sirius might. Skip to the bit I have a hope of, please?"

"It works," said Hermione. "It isn't the same, though. It has a different interface, and less limits on than the previous ones. Apparently the Unspeakables thought nobody would be stupid enough to use it in a way that would get them killed. I recommended, or was going to recommend, in my papers in response that they did add those limits."

"Never trust the general public," said Ginny. "That's what Dad says."

"It was very easy to get into the Department of Mysteries that night Sirius died," said Luna.

"Exactly," said Hermione. "Lucius probably unlocked it for the Death Eaters somehow, but still, it's dangerous. Because a lot of the data on the original Time-Turners was burnt, like I said, this one was about fifty-percent memory from Unspeakables on what the previous ones had been like and the other fifty percent is theory and ultimately some guesswork based. In theory, it can travel forwards in time as well as backwards. However, we don't know how to make it do that, and neither did the Unspeakables. The last time a Time-Turner was used to go forwards in time was 1899.

"They went out of their way in fact to say that they didn't know if it would work, even to go backwards, but they were reasonably confident it would."

"Why didn't they test it?" asked Sirius.

"We hadn't given them the approval yet, from the Minister's office. Kingsley was unsure it was a good idea. He'd got cold feet, a bit, I think."

"And what about our ability to change things?" Ginny walked to the kitchen and came back with an apple.

"Well, that's complicated."

"What of this isn't?" asked Ginny, taking a bit from her apple.

"Okay. So, there are two predominant theories about time travel. One is the casual loop, which you'll know about Ginny from what Harry told you about the night we saved Sirius. Essentially, he could cast the stag Patronus even though he'd never done it before because he had seen himself doing it when he had done that hour the first time around."

"And you don't know how grateful I am for that, or I'd have been a sad little husk of a man before you could rescue me," said Sirius. "Chuck us an apple, Ginny? Hermione still hasn't let me get down the chippy."

Hermione carried on, ignoring Sirius as Ginny used her Chaser skills to good advantage and an apple flew past her head.

"The other is that everything you do has the ability to change something. That is what I'm worried about. If we were to say, save James Potter in 1981, then that could have a knock-on effect onto something else. It may mean for example that Harry dies, or that the Voldemort fails, tries again another day, and all three of them die. Or he gives up and attacks Neville, who dies and it cements Voldemort's strength."

"Right," said Ginny.

"Those are more on the morbid end of the possible effects continuum," said Luna. "But I take your point."

"Or we could do a hell of a lot of good," said Sirius.

"And that's where the two of you essentially disagree," said Ginny. "Okay. What now? And remember, I absolutely will make good on my promise to Silence you if there is any shouting."

"She tends to start the shouting," grumbled Sirius, but was quiet at a look from Ginny.

"I still don't think deliberately seeking to fiddle with time is a good thing," said Hermione. "There's a chance we're meant to be here, but I don't think we have any proof that we are. And how unlikely is it that both sets of us were meant to be here? We've come from two different times in two different ways. Sirius arrived here in a way I've never even heard of."

"Just because you've never heard of it, doesn't mean it hasn't happened before and isn't perfectly ordinary," said Luna. "Nobody believed in Wrackspurts."

"They don't exist," said Hermione.

"I doubt you've ever seen a Lethifold either, and do you deny that they exist?"

"Children," said Ginny, showing them her wand in warning.

"I can't see why we can't," said Sirius. "We can be careful."

"Careful?" said Hermione. "You can be careful all you like, and it can still lead to consequences you can't even imagine."

"Fucking hell, Hermione, do you think I'm dense or something? I can imagine a hell of a lot of consequences, and there's quite a few of them if we don't do anything here too. James. Lily. Harry growing up an orphan. Remus dies. I die. Perhaps you win in the end, but is the cost worth it? What if we can do it quicker?"

"And what if we kill them anyway?"

"We won't!"

"How do you know, Sirius?" Hermione could feel her voice getting higher and closer to shouting. She took a deep breath. Nobody could work out all the different myriad ways that the consequences of their actions could interact, nobody.

"How do you know that I'll fuck it all up?" He was close to shouting now too. "I'm not stupid."

"I never said that!"

"Yes you fucking well did! You don't know any more than I do about what might happen, and yet you're acting like you know fucking everything! You're withholding information about your future thinking it will make me fall into line, so you get to control what happens!"

"I'm trying to keep it safe!"

"You're making it less safe! I'm going to try whether you give me that information or not. If you give it to me I can sort through it and work out a plan that will make less people die, I'm sure of it! You're being needlessly obstructive and people will fucking die! It isn't a game!"

Hermione opened her mouth to retort, and once again found that no sound was able to get out. Sirius appeared to be having a similar problem.

"I said I would," said Ginny. "Shame. You were doing so well."

"I wouldn't cross Ginny, if I were you," said Luna.

Sirius threw his apple core at the wall with force and folded his arms again.

Hermione silently huffed. This was completely and utterly unreasonable. She hadn't done anything wrong. She had explained her position so many times, and Sirius had gone off and done something without even attempting to speak to the rest of them. He'd known that Remus and James would be in the library that day too. He was manipulating the whole thing.

She reached in her pocket and, without really thinking about it, her hand tightened around her wand. She knew enough non-verbal magic to hex him well and good even with the Silencing Charm in place on her.

" _Expelliarmus,"_ said Ginny, almost lazily, flicking her own wand at Hermione. The wand flew out of Hermione's pocket and Ginny caught it neatly. "And as a precaution, _Expelliarmus!_ " Sirius' wand flew out of his pocket, too.

Sirius got up and made to leave the room, but as he approached the door to the stairs it banged shut. He tried the handle; it was locked.

"I'll do that to whichever door you approach," said Ginny. "I've had it with listening to both of you rant about the other one and never talking this out properly. We've been in the past two months and you've achieved literally nothing except a tonne of research and increasing your desire to argue with and then ignore each other. We are getting this over with today."

Hermione did not want to be the first to speak this time. Sirius ought to make an effort too. He'd just laid there so far, chomping his apple and glaring and making snide comments.

"I'm hungry," said Luna. "I'm going to make some food."

Sirius raised his hand. Ginny waved her wand at him.

"Bread's stale," he said. "You can Silence me again now. Got nothing else useful to say, apparently."

Ginny laughed. It started as a slightly nervous giggle but soon turned into a full-scale laughing fit, with Ginny crouching on the floor doubled over in hysterics. Luna was humming in the kitchen, trying to cobble together some kind of meal from whatever they had in the cupboards, which was rarely anything useful. Sirius watched Ginny with an increasingly confused look on his face.

"I'm sorry," she said, after a while. "It's just… of all the things that have happened to us over the years this has got to be the most absurd. Bread's stale. Oh Merlin. The bread is stale and we're all a bunch of incompetents. We brought down Voldemort and we can't even buy bread often enough!"

"Do you understand?" Sirius asked Hermione. Still unable to talk, she shook her head. "Makes two of us."

It was several minutes before Ginny had calmed down enough to cast the counter-spell to allow Hermione to speak again, and several more before she was able to talk without collapsing back into laughter. Hermione waited as patiently as she could. It was perhaps useful, she thought, as it had at least persuaded them all to stop attempting to snipe at each other and to consider their positions carefully before they resumed the argument.

Luna returned into the living room with some kind of chicken, rice and carrot based dish, which tasted reasonable. The one thing to be said for this adventure was that it was far more comfortable than the Horcrux hunt. She had a decent bed, not a bunk in a slightly smelly tent, and food that was regular and tasted like food. Ron would have enjoyed this one.

As always when she thought of Ron, she felt a faint tugging in her heart. He was not who she had expected to fall in love with, but fall she had and she felt the absence of the boy in every quiet moment here. She knew that Ginny did too, for Harry.

And truth be told she wished Harry could have been here, too. He would have an idea of what to do. It wasn't that she wanted someone she could boss around, like Ginny had suggested she did, but that at least Harry and Ron listened to her and they thought about her ideas. Sirius just went off on one without any care for her thoughts.

She did get why he wanted to do this. She really did. But she just couldn't get on board with it.

"Hermione? Look, I'm sorry. I was a dick, and I should have told you I wanted to read your stuff and then talked through your findings with you. I really do think we can change this in a way that will help everyone, you know, and I'm maybe being a little bit selfish but only a little bit. It's Harry I feel for. And James, and Lily, and Remus. I coped with having nothing for twelve years, and I can do it again. They shouldn't have to."

He was sat up on the sofa, still holding his bowl with its brown border and coral coloured flower pattern around the inside. Not making eye contact, he watched the progress of his fork chasing around the last few grains of rice. She hadn't noticed before, but the whole of one side of his face and much of his shoulder and body was still splattered in blood.

He'd watched his friend have his arm sliced open tonight, and he'd left his brother behind to pledge his life to Voldemort.

Maybe she should have cut him some slack.

And he was right, in that there was no way of saying that just them being here wouldn't have affected everything.

She should apologise, too.

"I'm sorry, too. I should have made more effort to talk to you instead of just distrusting you. I want Harry to be okay too. And everyone else. I'm just worried about the impacts on everything else. I… Are you okay, after tonight? You're covered in blood."

"I'm fine. It's James' blood."

"Oh." Hermione got up from her chair, and walked over to Sirius. Kneeling at his feet, she used the spells she knew to Vanish the blood from his face and body and to heal the graze on his knee. "I'm sorry," she said, fixing the rip in his jeans. "I should have done this earlier."

"Could have done it myself," said Sirius. "Wasn't your responsibility."

"We all have to look after each other," said Hermione, and she meant it.

Ginny spoilt the moment a bit by giving the two of them a round of applause that seemed only slightly sarcastic. Luna just smiled a vague smile.

Hermione wondered if she would regret saying the next bit. It seemed sensible, and her calculations and the theory suggested it would be fine, and it would help Sirius. And her. She could hide it better, but she was about as good as Sirius was at doing nothing in truth.

"Sirius," she said. "I've got a proposal for you."

"I don't get married," said Sirius, sticking his tongue out.

"Oh for Merlin's sake," said Hermione, and nearly changed her mind. "I still think setting out to deliberately change the future is a bad idea. But how about… well, we know which Death Eaters die or get captured, don't we? Let's make sure that that all happens. Make sure all the ones that are out of the war stay out of it, so that we're certain nothing gets worse?"

"And if we do that, you'll talk to me about stuff and let me leave this house without being stalked?"

"Yes. And you'll agree not to go off and change things? Just us being here could cause a disaster, we don't know for certain if that might be affecting the timeline already, so it makes sense to do what we can to keep at least as many Death Eaters out of it as possible."

"I still want to." Sirius sighed. "But we don't know what would happen. You're right about that. And, we can review it in the future."

"We can," said Hermione, although she was certain she wouldn't change her view. But she was happy to talk about it. After all, not talking about it had nearly resulted in a disaster. She wasn't going to repeat that mistake. Hermione Granger had always prided herself on learning from her mistakes.


	12. Chapter 12: Back Home

**A/N: Just wanted to say thanks to those who have stopped to review the story, I love reading them. To the guest who mentioned the neighbour: I'm so pleased you mentioned Jo and I love that you're speculating on who she is :) and on what would happen to the future.**

 **Also thanks to my beta Rachael!**

 **Chapter Twelve: Back Home**

 _Harry_

 _June 2002, Grimmauld Place kitchen, London_

"Ronald Weasley, for the last time, sit the fuck down or fuck the fuck off."

Ron barely needed to pause in his pacing to flip his middle finger at Harry.

"She's missing, Harry! If Ginny was missing you would be just as worried!"

Harry looked up from his piles of parchment. "She's not missing. She's not at her flat, no, but that's not unusual at seven o'clock. She's not in the office, no, but they said they'd seen her not long ago when she'd gone down to the Department of Mysteries. Now I like that place less than anyone, but she's just got into an interesting theoretical discussion with some Unspeakable. Either that, or she's ignoring you because you were a little bit of an arse. It's actually possible she's dumped you and you haven't noticed, you don't have a great track record there."

"I was a massive arse."

"And you have one too."

"Fucking hell Harry, hit a man with a Beater's bat while he's down." Ron flopped into a chair, as far away from the tower of parchment belonging to him as possible.

"I'm just saying, Hermione is fine, and you don't need to panic. Sit down, and do some of your paperwork like I am."

"Where is Ginny, anyway?" Ron took Harry's advice to sit down, but he noticed that his best friend made no effort to begin the teetering pile of paperwork opposite.

"She's with your mum tonight. Something about wedding favours. They invited me, but I said I needed to get on with this." He indicated his own mountain of paperwork.

"You mean you have no interest in all that ridiculousness."

"That too."

"Since when does fighting the forces of darkness involve so much bloody paperwork, anyway?" Ron asked, pulling the top sheet from his pile. "It never did in the war."

"Because we were just a group of renegade teenagers who were completely unauthorised to be handling Death Eaters," said Harry. "Robards would have had a fit. Probably did. And, besides, given the Death Eaters controlled the Ministry, they would have arrested us rather than given us paperwork to fill out."

"Could be a new form of torture," said Ron, grimacing. "Make the Death Eaters file their own arrest papers."

Harry laughed. "You know Kingsley would never normally allow torture, but we might be able to get that one past him."

"Hermione would never let us. She thinks paperwork is great."

They worked in silence for a few minutes. Harry was trying to fill out a report for a weekend wait-and-observe he'd been on two weeks ago. If he had done the paperwork after debrief, which was the approved Ministry protocol according to the agreements he'd signed on beginning Auror training, then he might have remembered half of what he'd seen. As it was, he was able to write down the important bits, but the order was all over the place. Whether he'd seen the vampire on Friday night or Saturday night, he had no idea, but he knew it had been in the tavern.

It must have been Saturday, because that's when the fight had been, and he was sure that the vampire had been somehow implicated in the fight.

Or perhaps the vampire had been there on Friday, and the fight on Saturday was due to that.

It was Saturday. His partner had been blotto by that stage, which was a much bigger breach of Ministry protocol than ever-so-slightly fabricating your mission reports was, and so Harry's version was the only one that would count.

It occurred to him where Hermione was.

"Ron?"

Ron looked up from his own pile of paperwork, a big smudge of ink trailing across the parchment when he failed to lift his quill.

"Yeah mate?"

"Hermione's probably with Ginny. She's a bridesmaid, isn't she?"

"Oh yeah. Mum's probably talking her ear off about wedding crap. Did you know there are like twenty five different shades of blue, and Mum can tell the difference between all of them?"

"I did. Ginny complains about it most nights."

"Why did you let my mum have so much influence over your wedding?"

Harry shrugged. "I didn't care much. Ginny didn't care much. Molly did. So it was easiest just to let her get on with it."

"That's how Mum's reign of terror has lasted this long. It's easier just to let her get on with it. D'you remember when Mad-Eye tried to stand up to her that time at Grimmauld Place, and she threatened to jinx him, and he actually backed off?"

"I'm still not over the fact that she killed Bellatrix Lestrange."

"None of us are, mate. Mum's something else."

"Do you remember when that reporter from the Prophet asked me if I was afraid of anything now I'd killed Voldemort, and I said I was afraid of swearing in front of Molly Weasley? That was after the dressing-down I'd had the night before for saying 'fuck'. The reporter didn't believe me."

"I remember Mum shouting at you. 'Even if you're the Chosen One and Boy Who Lived Twice, you can't use that language around me young man! I don't care how many wars you've ended!' I love Mum. She's hilarious as long as she isn't shouting at you." Ron's impression of his mother was spot-on, right down to the hand movements.

"Can you believe she'd never properly shouted at me before that? She always said she saw me as a surrogate son, but that was when I truly became a Weasley."

"Nah mate, Mum shouts at non-Weasleys too. She shouted at Sirius almost constantly that summer we spent with him. You were her son from the day we flew Dad's car into the garden with you in."

Harry muttered something that was possibly slightly intentionally, unintelligible to Ron. His face was burning.

"I'm going to ask Kreacher to make me some dinner," he said, when he'd got himself under control. "Do you want to stay?"

"Yeah, 'course. It's either that or do my paperwork outside Hermione's place, waiting for her to come home. Do you really think she meant she'd dumped me?"

It was near midnight when the boys looked up from their paperwork, after Kreacher had fed them stew and fruit tart and Harry had attempted to explain how serious relationships work to his best friend. They had heard the crackle of something in the fire.

Harry was over to it first. Very few had access to his Floo, so it would be Hermione, someone at The Burrow, Robards, or Minerva McGonagall. Robards had insisted, and the rest were the people he trusted,

Molly Weasley's head was in the fire, which was not who he was expecting. He was assuming it would be Hermione, to complain about Ron, something he had told her repeatedly to stop doing. He had told Ron to stop moaning about Hermione to him, too. He'd broken that a bit tonight, but for the insignificant crap it still held.

He hoped Molly didn't want his opinion on the favours. He'd eventually have to admit he didn't have one.

"Hello Molly," said Harry. "How's the wedding planning?"

"Where's Ginny?" asked Molly, with no greetings.

"With you, isn't she? That's where she said she would be this evening."

"No, Harry dear, she's not come home and I assumed she had gone to spend the evening with you rather than resolving this little issue with the wedding favours." Molly's face contained a mixture of annoyance and concern. Perhaps it was the annoyance that had prevented her reaching top Mrs Weasley panic levels.

"No, she's not here, Molly."

"Oh. Mind if I come through?"

"I'd rather you didn't, Mum," Ron muttered in the background. He was ignored. Although he had told Harry he was looking for Hermione at Grimmauld Place, Harry had reason to believe that Ron may have been hiding from his mother. Ginny had dropped into his office on her way to see Hermione that afternoon, and told him all about the row between Molly and Ron about exactly how he should be treating his girlfriend.

Molly dusted herself off on arrival in the Grimmauld Place kitchen, swiftly Vanishing the ash that fell from her.

"So, if you don't have my daughter, and I don't have my daughter, where is she?"

"Hermione's not around, either, so they're probably together." Harry looked over at his pile of paperwork. Half of it was not a bad start, but he'd need to dedicate the best part of tomorrow to it after the defensive magic training. And Ginny was a grown woman. She frequently told him to stop fussing over her, after all. "Did you check at her place?"

"Before here," said Molly, her look of concern growing.

"Fuck."

It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Molly Weasley didn't even raise an eyebrow at her youngest son's choice of words, let alone say anything.

Both Weasleys sank down into the nearest chairs, and with a matching motion, put their heads in their hands. Harry would have laughed, and ribbed Ron for having the same reaction as his mother, if the situation had not been fairly serious.

If Ginny was with Hermione, that ruled out the Department of Mysteries, too.

They'd probably gone to out and were complaining about Ron in a pub somewhere. Not the Leaky Cauldron, Ginny hated it in there.

You'd think they'd disappeared entirely from time and space, the way Ron and Molly were acting.

"They have to be somewhere," said Harry, feeling the need to be the voice of reason. Nobody else was capable of that, right now, and somebody needed to be. "You've checked The Burrow, we've checked here, and they're not at Hermione's place. Ron checked the Ministry, earlier, or Hermione's office anyway. If Ginny is with her, they are unlikely to be in the Department of Mysteries, although it is still possible Hermione is there. Anywhere else?"

"She's gone," said Ron, pitifully.

"Ginny said Luna was with them this afternoon," said Harry. Nobody else was adding anything useful to the discussion. "We should check her place."

There was still no response from either Ron or Molly, so Harry returned to the fireplace. This was why they needed to find Hermione. Nobody listened to him like they did to her.

Throwing a handful of Floo powder, he stuck his head into the flames and shouted "Lovegood Rook!" This was still something he hated to do, avoiding it at almost all cost. It was the feeling of his neck spinning alone, which was worse than all other forms of other magical transportation combined.

"Harry?" came the voice of Xenophilius Lovegood. Harry couldn't see where the man was speaking from, as there was a large amount of fire ash in his eyes that he was trying to blink out. Surely that was the one use of glasses, to keep random stuff out? When he was able to open them again, he could see the large man sat at the table in palest green robes, unshaven and dishevelled. Luna's father had not been right since she had been taken by Death Eaters in the war. Well, had not been himself, was a better turn of phrase.

"Mr Lovegood," started Harry. "Have you seen Luna this evening? We have lost touch with Ginny and Hermione, and Gin said they were meeting Luna this afternoon. We wondered if she knew where they had gone."

"No," said Xenophilius, not moving from the table. "But she is often not here. I don't know where she goes, and she doesn't say. My Luna has many demands on her time. I'm sorry I could not be of more help, Harry Potter."

The conversation was closed, that much was clear, and Harry hadn't learnt anything of use. He pulled his head backwards out of the fire, this time being sure to close his eyes before he did so.

"Xeno's got nothing," he said. It was mostly to himself. Ron and Molly were still flopped at the table. Ron was making a low groaning noise.

For something to do, Harry began to make a pot of tea. As soon as he had filled the kettle and placed it on the stove, Kreacher appeared. He had an annoying habit of doing that whenever Harry tried to do something for himself. Ron, like Sirius, claimed the elf was going mad, but Harry thought if anything Kreacher was more sane than Harry had ever seen him. He just seemed to enjoy muscling in on things.

"Kreacher, please, I can do this myself, I told you to take the rest of the night off."

"It's past midnight, Master, so Kreacher will help. It is the morning."

Harry supposed, on a technicality, Kreacher was right.

He was halfway through his second cup of tea from the pot, when he thought of something that would solve both of these problems.

"Kreacher?"

"Yes, Master?"

"Can you find Hermione and Ginny for me, please? And Luna, if you can?"

"Kreacher will find the Muggleborn and Master's Ginny for Master, yes he will!" With an unnaturally loud noise, Kreacher was gone. It had taken the best part of two years to stop Kreacher calling Hermione a Mudblood, but he seemed to have finally got the hang of it. Harry didn't fail to notice that the elf still couldn't bring himself to use her name.

Without anything else to do, Harry drank a third cup of tea, and persuaded Molly to have some. Ron perked up briefly to ask if Harry had any alcohol, but at a look from his mother went back to pacing the room as he had been doing at the start of the evening.

Okay, it was getting late, and Ginny usually sent him a Patronus or an owl if she was going to be somewhere other than where she'd said she would be. But they'd also argued only a few days ago about his apparent need to smother her, and he'd said he would try to stop. He thought he was doing rather well at sticking to his promise, especially when Ron and Molly had given up all pretence that they weren't panicking.

Once the clock hit two o'clock in the morning, Harry did allow a little bit of panic. He'd sent a Patronus, which had disappeared off with no response, and had sent a letter off with his owl, Bathilda. He'd Flooed Hermione's place again, and sent Ron over to the Burrow, and nothing. He'd even Apparated to the Holyhead Harpies training ground, the England Quidditch Club, and Hermione's parents old house, but all of them were as empty as you would have expected at one o'clock in the morning.

He had to admit he was worried, now.

This just wasn't Ginny's usual behaviour. It was sort-of Hermione's, who had occasionally in the early days after the war's end disappeared somewhere for a few hours. She had said she enjoyed the solitude, and Harry had more than understood. But she hadn't done that for over two years, and that didn't account for Ginny.

His worry was compounded by Kreacher's reappearance.

"The new Mistress is gone, Master! Kreacher cannot find her! And the Muggleborn, and the blonde one!"

"Gone?" asked Harry, crouching down on the floor next to the elf.

"Gone?" echoed Molly, her voice close to breaking.

"Kreacher has tried everywhere, and all his elf magics, but new Mistress is nowhere!" Kreacher looked close to breaking himself. Harry suspected it was more of a reaction to failure than any real love for Ginny, but he had never referred to her as 'mistress' before.

"Okay," said Harry. "Thank you Kreacher. You've done well. Now please, go and get some sleep."

Sleep was what Harry needed, too, but that didn't look likely.

"Death Eaters have got them!" shouted Ron, throwing his teacup to the floor. "We have to go!" He grabbed at his wand, by the wrong end, and set fire to the hem of his own robes.

"I do not think that is the way to tackle Death Eaters!" shouted Molly, who at least had her wand the correct way up. Ron extinguished his robes.

"Stop! There aren't any known Death Eaters active in this country right now! And if there were, well Ron you should know better than to rush in! That's how we got Sirius killed!"

Both Weasleys had the good sense to lower their wands at this point, although Ron's robes were still smouldering slightly. The slightly charred smell was taking over the kitchen.

"Molly, can you alert someone at The Burrow and ask them keep an eye out for them there? Then you can stay here with Ron in case they arrive here. I'll ask Xeno Lovegood to tell us if they arrive there, and then go to Hermione's place. We'll all try to get some sleep, and if they're not here in the morning then we can use all the powers us and the Ministry have to find them." His plan and his voice were calmer than he felt, but again, somebody had to be.

"Why can't I wait at Hermione's place?" asked Ron.

"Because if she's still angry with you, which she would have every right to be, then are you really the best person to be lurking in her flat?"

"And she'd rather have you lurking there?"

"At the moment, I think yes she would. The concerned best friend, verses the idiotic and commitment-phobic possibly-ex lover?"

"Point."

"Don't do anything stupid if she comes here, yeah?"

Ron nodded.

Harry, after packing himself a few essentials and, on reflection, his stack of paperwork, took himself off to Hermione's small flat over the second-hand bookshop in Hogsmeade. It was a well-kept place, small and compact and floor-to-ceiling with books. Harry chose to bed down on the sofa, as it felt intrusive to wander straight into her bedroom.

Not that he could sleep.

Two of the most important people in his life were missing, and he couldn't come up with many more places to look for them.

Well, Harry Potter had not got 99% on his Search and Arrest/Rescue module of Auror training for nothing, and he was going to locate Hermione, Ginny and possibly Luna as if his life depended on it. It did. He hadn't lived life without Hermione in it for over ten years, and he had no idea how he would be able to live without Ginny. He still was not convinced Luna was missing, but he would look for her as well. There was a high chance she would show back up at some point, having gone on an impromptu Plimpie fishing trip or something else that made sense only to her.

He could do this.

He'd killed Voldemort, how hard could a missing persons case be?

 _Ginny_

 _August 1978, Saltburn_

Today was Ginny's birthday.

Hermione had remembered, of course, and there had been a cake and a few well-chosen small gifts when she had woken up that morning. Even Sirius, who was unlikely to have known her birthday, had been prompted into getting her something. All of them were Quidditch themed, as Hermione had known Ginny's love of old Harpies memorabilia. Being in the past, it was easy to get, she supposed.

Ginny was grateful for the lovely presents, of course she was. If she could make it back to the future, they'd fit perfectly in her collection. The 1978 Harpies banner was a rare piece, she'd been trying to get an old banner with the mascot they'd had between '77 and '83 for ages. It was near impossible.

But somehow the gifts and the cake and the thoughtfulness all just made her so, so, homesick.

She missed Harry, most of all. By now, they were supposed to have got married and she would have flown in her first World Cup as part of England's Chaser team. Harry would have come out to cheer her on, and they would have gone on their honeymoon afterwards. They were planning North America for three weeks. She just wanted to tell him what was going on, to be able to talk to him. She just wanted a hug.

She missed her family. Mum would be worried, if this was working in a way that time was passing for her family. Ginny still hadn't got her head around all of this, despite Hermione's full and thorough explanation a few days before.

She missed everything about her life.

Saltburn was a pretty town. There were positives to this. She'd found the best Muggle bakery ever, and made a point of sampling all the chip shops along the seafront to work out which offered the best chips. She was working on the ones along the side streets now, with Sirius who had joined her quest for the nicest chips in the north of England with gusto. She'd read more books than she'd read for years.

Spending more time with Luna and Hermione was fun. All three of them had such conflicting work schedules in their usual life that it was hard to see her friends.

On the whole though, Ginny wanted to go home.

Sighing, she swung herself off the bed where she had disappeared off to mope, and started to pull herself together. They'd agreed to visit one of the pubs in Saltburn today in celebration, something they'd not done before. Ginny was certain Sirius had been in at least one of them, and Luna definitely had (Muggle watching, she'd said, and Ginny absolutely believed her), but Hermione and Ginny hadn't.

In fact, the four of them had never been out together, and it was quite a momentous occasion.

"Ginny, are you almost ready? Sirius says he's going to leave without you if you don't hurry up, because he's a highly impatient man. He didn't say the last bit, but I know of course he meant it." Luna was in the doorway. She had toned down what she had gone down the stairs wearing ten minutes ago. Perhaps Hermione had told her that the gurdyroot earrings weren't likely to make sense to the Muggles in a North Yorkshire pub.

"I'm on my way," said Ginny, slowly working on pinning her hair back from her face.

"Good," said Luna. "Hermione and Sirius have agreed not to shout at each other for the night."

"I give them half an hour," said Ginny.

"They do look very sincere, I think they almost believe themselves that they can do it," said Luna. "An hour."

Ginny laughed.


	13. Chapter 13: The Recruiter

**Chapter Thirteen: The Recruiter**

 _Sirius_

 _September 1978, Hogsmeade_

Hermione had approved this little expedition on one condition; that they Apparate to a hidden hillside above Hogsmeade and walk down with Sirius in his dog form in case anyone recognised him. Sirius had felt that was overkill, but there you were. There was caution, and then there was over caution that ended up causing more problems than it was worth. Hopefully this fit into the former category.

Maybe she just didn't want him able to use his wand.

He had spent enough time as his doggy alter-ego, known as Padfoot, Snuffles, Ben or Fido depending on who you talked to, to know that there were an awful lot of benefits to being a dog. Aside from the obvious preventing you going mad in Azkaban ones. People scratched your back if they saw you, and it was hard to find someone willing to touch him in human form these days. He'd have fallen down at least twice trying to traverse these stupid mountain paths if he had two legs instead of four. The snacks were good. Digging was a pleasure Sirius hadn't anticipated. Chewing bones was something he did not particularly enjoy, but did it occasionally for appearances sake.

Fleas, nope. Fleas could fuck right off.

He was several hundred feet ahead of the girls by the time they arrived at the bottom of the hills. They were all hindered by human feet, although only Hermione seemed to be having a genuine problem. Sirius filled the time by barking at a squirrel, another thing he had not expected to enjoy.

"Wait," said Hermione. "I've got a stone in my shoe."

Sirius didn't exactly understand why everyone was here. They were probably just bored. Fuck knows he was lately, and if he hadn't had the idea of this little reconnaissance trip, he would probably have been trying to get himself in on whatever schemes the girls had been cooking up. Which seemed to be none. All of them had the brains for scheming, and he couldn't see why they didn't use them more often. Ginny could have been a Marauder, the other two didn't have the drive.

"Ready," said Hermione, after what seemed like an age.

Most people had assumed Sirius was impatient over the course of his life, but it was actually really hard to have a good sense of time passing when you were a dog. And he blamed the times he struggled to wait in human form on his Animagus self.

The three girls chatted away as they made their way down into the village proper. They were three witches up in Hogsmeade for the day for a bit of shopping and a spot of lunch, with their badly-behaved but adorable pet dog. Sirius had made them promise to give him some lunch.

Lunch. Steak was best, or any meat, but really as a dog Sirius would take anything. It faintly disgusted him, but it didn't make that fact any less true. He tried to avoid liver, even as a dog. Now there was a taste that lingered.

The downside to this plan was that three witches up for some shopping didn't usually stop by the Hog's Head.

"I've told you," said Ginny. "We waltz in there, pretending we don't know the reputation, and look all baffled. Then we take a seat calmly, get a drink, and listen."

"That draws far too much attention," said Hermione. "We'd have been better off trying to look a bit shadier and blending in."

"If the Hog's Head's how it used to be, they all know each other anyway, and we'd stick out more if we were trying to look dodgy like them. Better just to appear so damn vapid and stupid that they don't need to worry about us."

"I find that wizards of a certain type very much underestimate what witches can bring to society," said Luna.

"Exactly," said Ginny. "At the Hog's Head, you get that type of wizard."

"How exactly do you know so much about the Hog's Head?" asked Hermione, bending down to remove yet another stone from her shoe. She clearly needed better shoes, rather than the very fashionable 1970s boots she was wearing. Ginny's trainers, if not exactly period appropriate, were more practical. Sirius had given up on expecting Luna to conform to anything, as there was no way she should have been able to get down the hill in her silver shoes but she had.

"Went there all the time at school."

"Why?"

"They sold me whatever I asked for."

Sirius had a better idea than all of this.

Tucking himself into a hidden doorway, he transformed back into a man.

"I'm going to transform back as soon as I'm done talking," he warned, looking right at Hermione. She nodded. "Hermione's right. You need to look a bit more dodgy. Blend in. People travel up here all the time, the regulars know each other but there's enough new traffic for you to be disguised. Two of you go in first, and then the other five minutes later, and pretend you're trading something dodgy. You don't have to say what. It's more convincing if you don't, in fact."

He turned himself back into a dog, and for good measure licked Ginny on the arm. Ginny scratched him under the ear. Ahhh, that felt good.

"Alright," said Hermione. "We're already wearing fairly dark robes. The one time I went in the Hog's Head, everyone had covered heads. Is that usual?"

Both Sirius and Ginny nodded.

"Okay, so we'll need to find something."

"Excellent," said Luna, brightly. "I love shopping."

Luna's idea of a nice head covering turned out to be very different to everyone else's interpretation of what someone conducting illicit business in the Hog's Head would wear. Sirius missed the second half of the argument, as he'd been spotted by the shopkeeper who it turned out was very much not a fan of dogs. Much to his annoyance, he'd been evicted to wait for the three witches outside of the shop. The shopkeeper had tried to insist on him being tied up. Fuck that.

Once the girls had found something suitable, Sirius, Hermione and Luna set off from the shop towards the Hog's Head, leaving Ginny behind. Ginny wandered off in the direction of the bookshop, determined to peruse a few slightly dodgy books before joining them to make her cover convincing.

Hermione went to the bar to order some drinks, hopefully having the sense not to order a Butterbeer, and Luna and Sirius chose seats. The front room of the Hog's Head was as dirty as it always was. The windows were letting through very little light due to the levels of muck on them, but that might have been a positive. Sirius didn't really want to see what was on the tables, and even less did he want to see the floor. The pads of his paws were sticking to it.

Luna seemed less than bothered, sitting at a table below a window and getting out a book. She'd chosen well; the table had a good view of the rest of the room but your eye wasn't exactly drawn to it. Carefully, she tipped her large hat down over her face a little more.

Hermione came over to them with a pair of drinks, thankfully ones that wouldn't mark them out as having no idea what they were doing in here. Sirius was about to ask where his was, before he remembered he was a dog. Even in the Hog's Head, people tended not to order their dogs booze.

"What are you reading?" Hermione asked Luna. "I've never seen that before."

Luna looked over the the top of the book. The inscription on the front read 'Modern Ritual Magic for Witches of Class', but the battered burgundy leather cover and the peeling embossed letters suggested the 'modern' it referred to had been some time ago.

"It's very interesting," said Luna.

"I thought ritual magic was a bit… well, dark," said Hermione, checking over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening in a very unsubtle movement.

Thankfully, nobody was. The two wizards on the next table were arguing over a game of cards. On their other side, a lone wizard Sirius was certain was a Death Eater sat, nursing a single pint of mead. A small knot of Hogwarts boys stood by the bar, all with the green and silver scarfs of Slytherin tied round their necks.

"It's not," said Luna. "Well, of course like much magic it can be, but so much of anything is about the intention you know. If you want it to be Dark, it will be. If you use it for another purpose, well, it might not."

Sirius lay on the floor, against his better judgement, and placed his head onto his front paws. His ears remained pricked.

"Really?" asked Hermione. "We never learnt that in school. Vol-er, You-Know-Who used a ritual to create his… soul-cases, and there was that one he used to bring himself back, and… well, all the ones I've ever heard of have been frankly horrible."

Luna lowered the book, and pointed at one of the pages. "Look at this one. It's a fertility ritual. Nothing bad about it, just the use of some herbs and some spells to encourage your body to become ready to bear child."

"And you're not signing them over to Satan?"

Luna raised an eyebrow.

"That's a Muggle thing, then. Muggles usually associate rituals with Satanism, or sometimes Celtic pagans."

"I think it will be closer to the Celtic pagans than the alternative," said Luna. "Lots of these are said to descend from Celtic rites. Even the Muggles understand that there is much evidence of magic being used in what they describe as Celtic Britain, particularly in Wales."

Sirius was saved from any more theoretical discussion by Ginny walking in. She played her part well, glancing over at them with a look of disdain before stopping at the bar to order. Drink in hand, she sat down at the table and nodded. If Sirius hadn't seen her disguise in advance, he wouldn't have known it was Ginny under the floor-length black veil.

"Deal still on?" she asked, loudly enough to be heard by the Death Eater on the next table.

"If you can follow through on your side," said Luna shortly.

The three witches began to talk in hushed voices, heads leaning together on the table, as if conducting a genuine business deal. Luna and Ginny were both excellent actresses. Sirius, on the floor and as a dog, had no impact on any of this, and was free to nose around the room to his hearts content. He even got up and had a little sniff at the heels of one of the Hogwarts students. Just to keep in character of course. They smelt strongly of Firewhisky, which Sirius knew full-well Aberforth was happy to sell to students, and as if he had recently farted. Teenage boys were disgusting.

Most of them were boys he recognised as friends of Regulus', the younger Mulciber, the Selwyn kid, Vandin Bulstrode and the viciously cruel Henry Porter. Porter was a half-blood, and seemed to think he needed to prove himself all the more for it. Selwyn at least joined the Death Eaters, and Sirius was sure he recalled the younger Mulciber dying during an attack in late '79 or early '80. He hadn't seen Bulstrode since school. Porter had gone to Azkaban for his activities with the Death Eaters, he'd been caught shortly after the war ended. Sirius had seen him brought in.

It was Porter that smelled of farts.

Sirius went back to sit at Hermione's feet. The witches were still talking in hushed voices, and everyone else in the pub was ignoring them. This was exactly the plan, and for that Sirius was glad. This had to go perfectly, so that Hermione didn't kick up a fuss and demand they stopped going anywhere near anything once again.

The old wooden door to the pub creaked open again, and Regulus Black walked through accompanied by two more Slytherins. Regulus looked far paler than he had a month ago, his cheeks less rounded and his straight dark hair brushing into his eyes. He was still attractive, and his face showed no signs of any worries. He was laughing and joking with the boy following him in. The girl, the only girl of the group of Slytherins, stared directly at the Death Eater at their table with an undisguised hunger.

"Avery." Regulus greeted the Death Eater, introducing his little bunch of Slytherins in turn. "Petrus Mulciber, you know his brother, of course. Octavius Selwyn, whose father is friends with mine and is sympathetic to our cause. And these are Vandin Bulstrode, Henry Porter, Elphias Hundring, and Alecto Carrow.

"Pleasure." Avery held out his hand to each Slytherin in turn. Alecto Carrow looked like she wouldn't wash it for a week after he'd touched her.

"Regulus says that you've let him take the Mark," started Mulciber. "I want to." His small, dark eyes were narrowed with greed, and he stroked his left forearm as he spoke. His attempts at growing facial hair were pitiful, Sirius thought.

"Prove your worth to the Dark Lord, and you will be allowed the honour too," said Avery smoothly.

"Which is exactly what I said." Regulus accepted the drink handed to him by Porter, who was looking at Sirius' brother with an almost simpering look. A couple of the group seemed to be jealous of Regulus for already having the Dark Mark on his arm, and the others apparently treated him like a hero.

"Did you tell him of our keenness to join?" asked Porter.

"I did," said Regulus. "If I had not, he would not have sent Avery here today. The Dark Lord is anxious to meet you, all of you, but he does require a demonstration of your loyalty first."

"I put two Mudbloods in the Hospital Wing yesterday," boasted Porter.

"I've been working on a new curse," said Hundring. "It's better than anything Severus Snape could have managed." He had blonde hair, tied back with a string from his face, and he at least could grow a moustache.

"I've managed to get sixteen Gryffindor girls injured through cursing the toilets," said Alecto Carrow, refusing to be left out. She seemed to be wearing her best dress robes, and lipstick.

"Childish pranks, most likely," said Avery. The older man looked bored, and the potential recruits started at his dismissal of what they likely thought were impressive boasts. Regulus was sat back, swirling the remaining half of his Firewhisky in its glass, watching. It was almost as if he enjoyed having the upper hand amongst his friends, as a member of the club they were so desperate to join.

"Have any of you ever used an Unforgivable?" Avery continued. "Used a spell with the intent to kill? Exactly how committed are you to our cause? What would you stop at to show your devotion?"

"Nothing, I would do any of that to be assured a place alongside our Lord," said Selwyn. The others nodded.

"Prove it," said Avery. "I will let Regulus know when, as this is not the place for plans. Be prepared. The Dark Lord from time to time requires certain undesirable elements to be removed from society; you know the sorts. Mudbloods, Muggles and those who would see them protected. I'm sure you're aware that they will need to be eliminated for our ambitions to succeed, and your assistance would of course ensure the Dark Lord is aware of the strength of your desire to join him."

"We are ready," said Alecto Carrow.

"As I said, Regulus will pass on the information. The Dark Lord is most pleased with him, at present. Now, Regulus and I have some sensitive discussions that we need to have. We will require some privacy."

The Slytherins, with much fawning and far more expressions of devotion than anyone should rationally give to anything, filed out of the pub. Probably off to recreationally curse some Muggleborn students.

"Another drink, Black?"

"Of course."

Avery motioned to Aberforth to bring over more drinks. Sirius slunk further down under the table. He was near to certain Aberforth had worked out that at least Sirius and James were Animagi after an incident in the Easter holidays of their seventh year. While he was certain Aberforth wouldn't rat him out to any Death Eaters, the bartender would definitely want to speak to him regarding a certain barrel of mead.

Once Aberforth was back behind his bar, Avery spoke.

"Been busy then, Black?"

"The Dark Lord asked me to recruit. These are those that are of-age and who I have persuaded of our cause in just the two weeks. He does not wish to take those who are underage, and with good reason, or I would have had more."

"I never said you had not done well. The Dark Lord will be informed of your impressive progress."

"I would expect nothing less. What have you been doing?"

"You know I can't tell you that."

"Come on, Avery, I've been stuck with these idiots, who think hexing the odd Gryffindor or blood traitor is the height of our work. I've somewhat outgrown that. Let me come on some real action, or at least tell me of it."

Avery laughed at that. The mirth did not suit his long, harsh face.

"I'd say you're bored, Regulus. You've certainly outgrown your classmates, that much is true. The Dark Lord has plans for you, but he thinks you should finish out your schooling. I've heard the rumour that he doesn't want to put you at risk before you have managed to make a match and father a little baby Black to continue your proud and noble line. Your cousins seem to have no desire to procreate, except for the blood-traitor."

"Andromeda? She's no cousin. I thought Narcissa was with child?"

"Miscarried it. Lucius was fuming."

"Oh. I shall have to owl her my commiserations. I'm sorry for her, she would make a good mother. Besides, my mother is working on my marriage. I shall be engaged at Christmas."

"To whom, may I ask? The Dark Lord will be most pleased, provided she is a suitable bride for our Most Ancient and Noble House of Black."

"You know our motto. _Toujours Pur_. My mother has chosen me a darling pureblood girl. Adeline Fawley. We will marry as soon as she is out of Hogwarts."

"So the summer from next?"

"Yes. I intend to get her with child as soon as possible."

"The Dark Lord will approve of the plan."

"As will my mother, who I am far more scared of." Regulus' face arranged itself into a soft, and completely insincere, smile. Avery did not appear to notice the insincerity, and laughed again.

"I met your mother once. That's a wise choice."

Regulus did not reply, and took a further sip of his drink. This Regulus looked cool and in control, completely at ease with this discussion of blood purity, marriages straight out of Hogwarts, proving yourself to evil men and the light torture of innocents. Sirius was beginning to wonder why he had tried to help his brother at all. He was just as in it as the rest of them were, planning a life of fucking evildoing and tiny pureblooded babies.

It was another insincere smile from Regulus that kept Sirius from leaving in disgust at his brother. If there was still any of the Regulus that he had known as a child, this was it. That smile was the one he had used as a child when he had been asked to eat vegetables he despised. Sirius had thrown his sprouts out the window, once, and watched them roll away down the square. His father had belted him for that. Regulus was more likely to eat them, but dislike it.

Perhaps there was something worth saving, here.

"Okay, Black, I'd best get on. You're alright, but I've got better things to do than hang around with the rest of that lot. I trust your judgement, and I'm sure they have potential, but there's work to be done on them."

"There is. Carrow fancies you. Thought I'd give you the heads-up on that one. She'd make a decent match, but if you prefer she's more than willing to fuck you before marriage. Porter is cruel, but I daresay the Dark Lord will have a use for him. Hundring is smart, but needs some reminding of the point of our little endeavour from time to time."

"Noted. Might take the Carrow girl up on that."

"You'll give me details to pass on?"

"Oh yes. You'll be coming along too. The Dark Lord is planning a series of attacks on some Mudbloods to test the new recruits and potentials. I'm sure you'll do us proud, Reg."

"I'd do nothing less. And now, I must meet Miss Fawley."

Avery swept out, throwing coins on the bar as he passed. After a respectful amount of time, Regulus followed, checking politely with Aberforth the cost left to pay on their account.

Sirius stayed silent on the floor as Ginny left the bar, and then followed Hermione and Luna out. He slunk past the barman, just in case Aberforth did work out who he was. The mead thing had been Peter's fault, anyway. James had told him to take gold.

Peter had frequently been stupid.

And here was Regulus being equally stupid. Why on earth would he think joining the Death Eaters was a wise idea? They were planning murder, for Merlin's sake, and Regulus was actually asking to go along? What the fuck was he thinking?

Up ahead, Sirius could see Regulus standing outside Scrivenshaft's, talking to some pale-faced, blonde-haired girl. Likely the fiancee. He hadn't known Regulus had had one. Girl or no girl, Sirius wanted nothing more than to go up to his brother and talk some fucking sense into the stupid boy, or perhaps just knock him onto the cobbles as a dog.

Then again, it wouldn't work. It would get Sirius painfully hexed or cursed, possibly by half-a-dozen Slytherins who'd just been told they weren't impressive enough, and probably only cement Regulus' view that his brother was unstable and dangerous and that it was far better to stick with the family that you could trust. Sirius knew the lines Regulus had been fed. They'd both been fed the same ones about Andromeda, when she'd left the family when Sirius was twelve and Regulus eleven.

And Andromeda was about as normal as it got for Blacks.

At least Regulus redeemed himself. Sirius had been hanging onto that fact since the conversation he'd had with Hermione where she revealed it. He hoped that Regulus had died painlessly, and that he'd known what he'd done would help. It was too much to ask that someone had thanked him when he was alive. Sirius never would have.

Sirius had visited the Black family cemetery, shortly after he'd been made aware of Regulus' death. He'd felt like he had to, in memory of the boy his brother had been and not the man he had become. James had come with him, under the invisibility cloak as he had been under house arrest at the time. Peter had refused; in hindsight because Regulus had betrayed the Dark Lord Peter was working for. Remus had been away.

There was no body to bury for Regulus, all his parents had received was a note to say that their second attempt at a son was dead. They'd given him a tall, proud headstone, though, white letters with his name and dates carved into black marble. They'd added the family crest and motto, and the inscription 'Ever Loyal'. Presumably to highlight that he had stuck around, and that Sirius hadn't.

Sirius had looked for a few minutes, and then stormed off.

The little group of time-travellers made their way back up the mountainside to their agreed Apparition point. They'd seen what they had come to see; confirmation there would be an attack on Muggleborns, and confirmation that Voldemort was actively recruiting inside Hogwarts. The whole thing had been unpleasant, and that was that.

There was nothing Sirius was allowed to do about it.

He still had hopes of convincing Hermione, but it would be a slow burn. Hopefully by November. It was mid-September now, and Hermione would take time to convince. But he had time yet. Two months, or the best part of.

The continued to climb the mountain path, Sirius still grateful for his four paws. The colours of the mountainside were changing to autumn tones, and the wind was picking up. Scottish autumn had a similar temperature to the London winters, and Sirius had always felt the cold.

So too did Hermione, with a red face and tears from the wind.

They reached the cave they had used to Apparate from, which was the same cave Sirius had used as a hide-out the second year he had lived on the run. It still felt a bit like home. There were of course no mementos of that time here, not now, years before he would come here, but he felt something for it anyway. The place held memories, the happiest ones he had of that year, and that was good enough for him. It connected him to why he was doing this. Harry, first and foremost, but he'd entertained Remus here too. Remus had been as disgusted by the conditions he was living in as Harry, no doubt, but far more vocal about it.

"Is this where Harry came to visit you?" Ginny asked, from beside him. "He talked about it once."

"Yes," Sirius replied. "He didn't think much of the decor or the facilities."

"And Harry has fairly low standards," said Ginny. "You should see the state of his office. I think Hermione did some of his paperwork for him, because the last time I was in there it wasn't as bad as usual, but it looks as though nobody's seen the real surface of his desk in months. Or bits of the floor. He's so bloody frustrating, it's like, how good could he be if he put some effort into his paperwork? I miss him, you know."

"So do I," Sirius said.

"He missed you. He went, he was like nothing I'd ever seen after you died. Apparently he smashed up Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore let him, said it was entirely his, Dumbledore's that is, fault you'd died. Harry was distraught. He missed you so much. Everyone tried to fill the gap you left in his life, Dad did, Fred and George, though they were shit at it, Remus, everyone."

"I sat in Azkaban regularly wishing James and Lily had made Remus godfather. He'd have done a better job."

"You were good for Harry."

"Hermione, are you alright?" asked Luna, from behind Sirius and Ginny. They both turned around. Hermione was sat on the floor at the mouth of the cave, silhouetted in the light. Luna crouched down in front of her, placing her arms on Hermione's shoulders. "Hey. What's wrong? You can tell us, you know, we may not be able to do anything useful but we can always try to help, you know."

"I just… they were so casually planning to kill Muggleborns, Luna! Just like it was going bowling, or playing chess! Killing! He's seventeen. Seventeen-year-olds killing! As proof of loyalty!"

Luna reached her arms around Hermione, and patted her back. Hermione's voice was coming in huge sobs now, and she was struggling to breathe through her own crying let alone get further words out. Ginny crossed the packed-mud floor of the cave to join the two girls, and Sirius hung back.

"We know they are terrible people," said Luna. "We have seen this behaviour before."

"We have but I'd forgotten, four years! Luna, it's… It's horrible."

"I know. You're strong, Hermione. We all are."

Well, if Sirius was using his cynical, calculating brain, this was progress against his plans to convince Hermione. And sometimes you had to use that side of your brain.

It wasn't that he wanted her to be upset. But, maybe that was how it had to be to make her stop and think.

She was a clever woman. Genius level, from what Harry and Remus had told him about her school work, and she was able to understand the time-travel thing from the Ministry and come to the exact same conclusions Sirius had. She could work out that it was possible to change time in a non-detrimental way. He was confident of that.

 _Patience,_ said Sirius' inner Remus. _Patience and clever words will convince Hermione, if you go in too strong she'll push back._

 _Listen to Remus,_ said the inner James. _He knows this shit._

Sirius wondered if he was mad, taking advice from invisible dead friends.

He decided to assume he wasn't.

But yes. Hermione was a clever woman. Let her come to her own realisations. He had until November, after all.

Sirius stuck his hands in his pockets, and ambled over to help comfort Hermione.


	14. Chapter 14: Birthday

**Chapter Fourteen: Birthday**

 _Hermione_

 _September 1978, Saltburn_

On the nineteenth of September, Hermione woke alone in her bed in a house she did not think of as home in a year that was not somewhere she was supposed to be. It probably ranked up there with her worst birthdays ever.

She dressed slowly. Even her clothes weren't right. Hermione had never enjoyed fashion, Muggle or wizarding, in the way many other girls did. So, she had never realised how much she had liked the clothes she owned until she lost them. Nowhere in this world could she buy a pair of ordinary jeans, just what her mother would have called bell-bottoms or flares. Everything had to be shimmery, or tight fitting Spandex, or brightly coloured, or even worse: all three. It took her hours of digging through clothes shops just to find anything in a style or a shape that she was willing to wear.

Finally finding and putting on some of her less offensively sticky-out jeans, she went downstairs.

At least breakfast foods were the same here as they were at home. Hermione was a toast kind of person, with butter and sometimes with jam, and that was something she could still have.

Given it was her birthday, she opted for orange marmalade.

She had a routine in the morning, one that was close enough to her routine at home that it all fitted. She always showered and dressed before breakfast, as her mum had encouraged her to do as a child. She ate while reading the Daily Prophet. At home, she'd go straight into work, or catch up on letter-writing. Here, she flicked through her notes on the black box and it's time device, in case she missed anything, and she thought about Ron and Harry.

She wanted to go home.

After her conversion towards at least not allowing the situation to somehow become worse, Hermione had to make peace with her decision. It had been a compromise, initially, a way of getting Sirius to at least stop trying to change the entirety of everything she had ever known.

She'd then taken it through a phase of 'well, it gives me something to do'. She was getting nowhere with getting them home, and honestly, she felt as though she needed a break. A different project, to challenge her brain and see if she could prod some new and better thoughts from it. She wasn't going to get anywhere just staring at the same bits of parchment from breakfast to dinner.

Now, she had become rather attached to it.

She liked the idea of ensuring things were as they should be. In her first year at Hogwarts, she'd gone around asking some of the older girls in the common room what it was like to be a Hogwarts student. She'd explained she was a Muggleborn, and knew nothing, and most of them had been keen to fill her in.

Of course, Hermione's life had been absolutely nothing like most of those girls' lives. They'd talked of the classes they'd taken, Quidditch, Charms Club, the Art Society, boyfriends, friendships and the other perfectly normal little things of school life. They hadn't exactly explained that she would become friends with the Boy Who Lived and his best friend, and Hermione hadn't ever anticipated that either.

That hadn't stopped her from occasionally trying to make her school life like the ones that had been described to her. She'd never had an interest in Quidditch, but she'd briefly tried joining the Charms Club. She wanted the normal school experience more than she was ever willing to admit to either Harry or Ron, although she had once in a fit of wanting to be understood told Parvati.

Parvati had tried to understand, but Hermione didn't think she had.

This morning she was joined by Sirius before Ginny or Luna, which was unusual. Sirius generally didn't surface much before 9am, and it was only 8.15.

"Alright?" he asked, heading to the kettle. Sirius liked tea in the mornings, and he did not usually eat until midday unless fried food was available.

"It's my birthday."

"I don't take much stock of birthdays," said Sirius. "Generally find them to be a pile of shit." He stirred his tea as he walked over to the table, and plopped himself down onto the chair next to her. He pulled a tiny, wrapped box from the fruit bowl, and passed it to her. "I got you a present. How old are you now?"

"Officially, twenty-three today. I think I'm technically considered a little bit older, as I did quite a few hours over again then I was fourteen."

"Ah," Sirius said. "My worst birthday was my twenty-second."

"What happened?"

"I was sent to Azkaban. Third of November, 1981. James and Lily died on the evening of the thirty-first of October, and I arrived at their cottage around midnight. It took me over a day to track down Peter. I was arrested in the middle of the day on the second of November, kept at the Ministry overnight, and shipped out to Azkaban on the morning of my birthday. No trial. No birthday cake. One of the Aurors accompanying me out there did wish me many happy returns, but by the tone of his voice he was being highly sarcastic."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, it was shit. Best friend is dead, another one is a fucking Death Eater, you might have had a blazing row with your third best friend and accused them of being a Death Eater when it turns out they weren't, and somehow you're the one getting the blame and being shipped off across the sea to be hassled by Dementors. Twenty-two, and that's it for Sirius Black."

"You got out, though. It hasn't been all bad."

"I did, and it hasn't, but I didn't know that at the time. And, I've always been seasick. Puked on my own shoes six times, and the Auror apparently didn't clean up murderers."

"I get seasick too. I went on the ferry to France with my parents a few times, and I was sick every single time."

"What's a ferry?"

"It's a really big boat, a ship really, you drive your car on and it takes you across the sea."

"A boat just for a car? What's the point of that?"

"Hundreds of cars. The people who travel in them. And shops. Like a little floating town."

"That's bonkers. Why would you do that? It would sink, it has to sink."

"It doesn't, I assure you."

"I'll never understand Muggles. And I got Outstanding in my Muggle Studies OWL."

"No wizard without at least one Muggle parent ever properly understands Muggles, I don't think. Harry, maybe. But he's a special case."

"But boats with hundreds of cars on. It's beyond ridiculous, Hermione, can't you see that?"

"It makes perfect sense to me. I'll never understand you purebloods."

"Oi. I'll have you know I'm nothing like any other pureblood."

"True. Most of them prefer to try and obliterate ferries. I bet you'd ride on one, given half a chance."

"I would not. What if it sank? The world would be absolutely lost without Sirius Black, let me tell you that right now."

Hermione laughed. "I reckon we'd cope."

"Would you now?" He drank the last of his mug of tea with a horrific slurping noise. "You see, you're staring at me in a weird sense of fascination, and you laughed at my stupidity over giant boats, which has distracted you from feeling shitty about your birthday."

Hermione had to admit that he was right. She had stopped feeling sorry for herself, although the whole thing had come via feeling even more sorry for the early-twenties version of Sirius Black.

"You have a point."

"I find I often do. You might even be beginning to like me, or at the very least tolerate my presence."

He was an arrogant wanker, though. Full of himself, is what Hermione's grandma would have said. A very high opinion of his own abilities, that would have been her dad's assessment.

But then, he'd probably have said all of that about himself, or would have have as a teenager, and Hermione did wonder how much of it was an act. He was often like this, bullish and irritating and so up his own arse it was a wonder he could see anything, and then he had those moments of complete and utter helplessness where she had no idea how he made it out of bed in the mornings.

There was no mental health help for wizards, so Hermione had read some books on Muggle methods of treating the problems that so many of them had after the war. She'd diagnosed herself with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, although she had no plans to see anyone for it. How the hell would you explain her life to a Muggle psychologist or counsellor? She'd worked through some exercises on her own, and given them to Harry and Ron and the others, and it had helped a bit.

She could book-diagnose Sirius, but it would do no good if he wasn't going to try and help himself. She had gone for Muggle book-learning as a coping mechanism, and he clearly preferred ignoring the situation and trying to be what she liked to call 'fun Sirius'. It was increasingly forced.

"I was going to make a cake today," she said, for lack of anything better to say to Sirius.

"Please do," he replied.

They lapsed back into silence. This was the way it often was between them, now. It was easier. They both knew they didn't agree, and they both knew fighting got them nowhere. And it upset Ginny. Luna didn't much seem to mind. She'd been reading that ritual magic book for days, and it was difficult to get much out of Luna when she was reading something.

"Is it the done thing to make a cake for your own birthday?" He was eyeing her with the look he had when he was planning something, the one he'd worn in his eyes the day of that ridiculous trip to try to save his brother.

"What?"

"People don't usually make cakes for their own birthday, do they?"

"No. But you've seen Ginny's cooking, she doesn't take after her mum, and Luna is better with savoury food."

"And me?"

"I don't think I've ever seen you make anything that doesn't involve frying it."

"Oi. I cooked those oven chips the other day. I maintain that they are a stupid food, but I did it."

"Okay, you can read written instructions and you can fry things."

"Thank you."

He was still looking at her with that look.

"Do you have to stare at me, like that?'

"It's either look at you or the fruit bowl, and you'd have been offended if I'd chosen the fruit bowl."

Hermione resorted to sitting in the garden that morning, to escape Sirius. She'd taken out the timeline he'd written out, of what had happened when and any deaths and injuries that had occurred, and was reading through it. She'd read it before, twice, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Judging on this, there was a raid by the Death Eaters on the Order Headquarters that they perhaps ought to go to. A Death Eater was supposed to die in it. It was not something Hermione wanted to watch, but it was what they had agreed to do.

And nothing bad happened to Order members besides the odd broken bone, so Sirius was unlikely to do anything idiotic.

As she was pondering the best way to go about this, and coming to the realisation she would have to talk to Sirius, she saw a head pop up over the fence.

"Hello there," said her neighbour, Jo. "I thought I invited you for a cup of tea? Are you avoiding me, now? I know I'm a bit of an odd one, my family tell me that on the regular, but I'm really not at all dangerous. I only bit someone that one time."

"Why did you bite someone?" Hermione asked, tucking Sirius' notes into her pocket.

"That's not a story I tell to people who refuse to come around for tea."

"I can't, I'm…" Hermione didn't really have a valid excuse. Her plans for this morning extended to avoiding Sirius and his weird looks, and avoiding Ginny and her intention to make Hermione's birthday a repeat of her own which had involved far too much alcohol for anyone's liking.

"Come on, duck, I've made a cake. Who can refuse cake, now? Well, you're a lot thinner than me, so perhaps you've got that willpower. Size of me, I clearly haven't." Jo patted her stomach. "Not that I care. My eldest daughter tells me fat isn't healthy. Well, I say you've got as long as you've got, and I've never felt the need to continue on past my date, as it were. Are you coming along, then?"

Hermione followed her neighbour, more out of a sense of politeness and having no real reason she could explain to Jo to refuse than because she actually wanted to go and eat cake with the woman. It wasn't that she didn't want to, either. She had nothing against Jo. It was just not something that she actively wanted to do.

"So," said Jo, once in her kitchen. She cut into a huge walnut cake displayed on the counter on its cake stand, and plated up a slice for Hermione. "What brings you to be moping in your garden? Tea? Do you take sugar?"

Without waiting for an answer, she slid a cup of tea over to Hermione having dumped a sugar and a half into it. Hermione drank it. It would have been rude not to.

"It's my birthday."

"Oh?" Jo sat at the table opposite her, prodding at her cake with a fork.

"Yeah." That was all she could say, really. There was no real way to explain why it was such a bad thing for it to be her birthday. Not in any way her neighbour would be able to understand, without going into the time travel.

"Well, we won't call this a birthday cake if you don't want to, but I haven't poisoned it, you know."

Hermione ate some. It was really very nice. And she felt slightly better for it.

"Thank you," she said to Jo.

"See, told you I didn't bite often."

"Now you have to tell me that story." It was as good a way as any of distracting Jo from keeping probing about her birthday. And, Hermione had to admit she was a little bit curious.

"Oh, that's not even very exciting. My husband was being obnoxious, and I bit him on the ear."

Hermione couldn't help but laugh. "Is that how marriage is meant to work?"

"No, but then my husband was not the best example of how marriage was meant to work. I kicked him out after… ooh, it was a long time ago now… his sixth affair, I think. The bite was affair number four, and I maintain he deserved it."

"I'm sorry. That's… horrible." Hermione didn't know what else to say. The tone Jo had delivered that in almost suggested she didn't care much about it, and most people didn't bring up their affairs with new acquaintances if the issues was still raw. But Hermione still felt sorry for Jo.

"Ah, it doesn't matter much anymore. He's a massive, what is it you young people say? A dick? Well, whatever offensive term you can come up with, he's one, and I'm better off without him. I'd have divorced the bastard, but it's next to impossible to divorce someone under wizarding law if you can't even find the bugger. I reckon he went abroad. Sent a postcard to three out of our four kids about a year after I kicked him out from somewhere in Brazil, and nothing since."

Jo noted the presumably shocked expression on Hermione's face, and laughed. Hermione certainly felt shocked.

"And this is why Margaret told me not to bring that stuff with her father up with new friends any more. I remember now. Still, gives me a laugh seeing people's faces."

"Sorry, it's just…"

"You've never heard anyone talk about affairs and abandoned wives the first time you've met them? No, I don't know anyone else who does it, either."

Hermione laughed again. She didn't necessarily understand this witch, but she felt as though she liked her.

"So, what about you?" asked Jo, polishing off the last of her slice of cake. "Attached? You said you weren't with that handsome bloke who lives with you, and I don't know why you wouldn't be."

"I'm with someone, yes, but it's sort of complicated," said Hermione, thinking of Ron back at home. She often wondered if he had noticed her disappearance, or whether time wasn't passing for them as it was here.

"Ah, right. Who's the lucky man?"

"His name's Ron. He was a friend for a very long time, and then we started dating, but he's struggling to commit. I told him I didn't want to speak to him until he had sorted his thoughts out and made a decision. And now, well, he hasn't exactly got a way to contact me."

"Sounds like you don't much want him to sort himself out, duck. Not if he can't find you now. Doesn't he have a decent owl, anyway?"

Hermione thought of Ron's owl Pig.

"His owl's the most useless bird I've ever met."

"I had once once that was deaf. Couldn't hear you tell it where you wanted it to go. Terrible owl, that one. But that's not my point now, is it? Do you want to end up with this Ron? What's he look like?"

"Tall, ginger, freckly. I really like him. I love him. I do want him to sort himself out. I'm just not going to wait around forever for him to do it."

"Hmm. You give him a deadline?"

"No." That was possibly a flaw. But then, she'd not exactly seen herself as issuing an ultimatum and then going off somewhere completely uncontactable. She was assuming she would be available in her flat or her office, and Harry would talk some sense into him within a few days, and he'd come back to her. He always did. Ron always came through in the end.

She knew Harry told both of them to stop coming whining to him, but Ron always did, and he always relented. He did the same for her when she inevitably bothered him about Ron.

"Then I don't think you much want him to fix it this time."

"How do you know it's a this time?"

"Oh, girl, I've seen enough witches with relationship problems. We always give the men too many chances. If you're at the ultimatum stage, then this isn't the first time he hasn't come through for you."

"I love him."

"Are you in love with him?"

"Of course I am!" This was ridiculous. She was discussing her relationship with someone who didn't know either her or Ron, and who was drawing entirely unfair conclusions from it. Ron, well yes he did have some problems with committing, but he was a good man and she loved him. Just because Harry had signed up to a life with Ginny straight after the war, and had no regrets, didn't mean that it was unusual to have some entirely normal wobbles about signing up for the long haul to someone from your teenage years.

She'd had a few herself, although she liked to think she had dealt with them better than Ron.

"Well, it is as they say your life, duck. Just make sure you're making the right decisions for you, yes? More tea?"

"I'd better be going." If she was going to get interrogated about her relationship any more, she had no desire to be here.

"Nonsense. It's your birthday, and I insist." Another cup of tea was pushed across the table towards Hermione.

"How many children do you have?" asked Hermione, searching around for another topic of conversation.

"Four. All girls, all witches, and one sorted into each House at Hogwarts. I'm led to believe that's quite rare. Margaret, my eldest, went into Slytherin. She's now at the Ministry, something about Quidditch regulations and organising matches. Helena, the Ravenclaw, and Ruth, the Hufflepuff, are twins. Helena's at home with her children, and Ruth works at St Mungos. My youngest is the Gryffindor, Betty. If I'm honest, I don't understand her job. She doesn't say much about it, and I've stopped asking."

"Four. Wow."

"That's what everyone says. They kept me busy, and now I have the grandchildren sometimes, and they keep me busy. In between I don't have a lot to do. Hence hassling the new neighbours. Now, tell me more about that man in your house? Is he single?"

Hermione had never asked Sirius about his love life.

"I think so. Yes. He's never mentioned a girlfriend."

"Perhaps he's gay, then. I can't see a nice man like that remaining unattached for long."

"He's…" Hermione searched around in her head for the best way to describe Sirius. The usual adjectives that came to mind about him were negative; annoying, stubborn, difficult, self-interested, avoidant. She had no idea if he was gay; that wasn't exactly important. "He's very clever," she settled on, "and he's devoted to his godson." That much was undeniably true. "He's also irritating and very much hard work." She would have been rid of him by now, had she trusted him enough to leave him alone.

"I like a clever man," said Jo. "My husband was as stupid as they come, sadly for me."

"And an annoying one?"

"If they have skills that may make up for it, I'm okay with that. At my age, you don't have to want something permanent or to move in with the buggers. Just a bit of fun will do me, and all the men my age have grey hairs you-know-where."

Hermione squeaked. She wasn't a prude, but she barely knew this woman! Jo laughed.

"Another thing Margaret has told me to stop talking about. I'm old enough now to say what I like. You're not offended, are you dear? I told Margaret that people aren't easily offended nowadays, not like they used to be. And if they are, I don't care what people think of me. I don't hurt anyone, and I'll say what I like other than that."

"No, I'm not offended." Hermione decided she quite liked Jo. Perhaps it was just that she liked talking to someone who said what they meant, unlike Sirius and Luna most of the time, or just that the woman didn't much care if she was liked. Perhaps she reminded Hermione of Harry and Ron.

"Invite him round," said Jo. "I'll see for myself if he's annoying or not. And take him off your hands for an afternoon, perhaps."

Hermione thought she might do that. She'd love to see how Sirius dealt with her new friend.

She arrived home to find Ginny sitting in the front room, looking slightly traumatised.

"I've been asked to tell you not to go in the kitchen under any circumstances, and I would highly recommend following that advice," she said. Her hair was full of flour.

Hermione had an idea of what was going on. Instead of confronting it, as she normally would have, she decided to let Sirius have his fun. And he was a wizard, whatever mess he made would be easy enough for him to clean up when he was quite done. Instead, she chose to settle down in her favourite chair with the notes of Sirius' again. The chair was not one of her grandparents' belongings, Luna favoured that chair, Sirius the sofa, and Ginny the floor or the beanbag. This was a soft orange velvet one that Hermione had found in a second-hand shop and immediately liked. It was one of the few things she had been able to choose about her current life.

There was a shout from the kitchen, which Hermione and Ginny ignored.

"Here, I've got you a present," said Ginny, handing over a badly-wrapped package. "I know you said no fuss, but I wanted to mark it."

The parcel was clothes. Ginny had a knack for finding stuff similar to what they had both liked to wear at home, in contrast to Luna who had embraced the styles of the day.

"Thank you," said Hermione, shrugging out of her cardigan and replacing it with the jumper Ginny had chosen, a knitted black and white one with a fair-isle style design.

"No problem," said Ginny. "More importantly, perhaps, have you got any idea what our next plan is? That little outing to Hogsmeade was all well and good, but I'm bored already. And I still don't understand the point of that one, if I'm honest."

"Neither do I," Hermione admitted. "I think we went just so Sirius could see his brother, although he says it was so he could check the names of their new recruits."

"I worry about him," said Ginny, folding the newspaper she had been reading neatly and placing it on the coffee table. "He's being weird. Brooding, angry, Sirius Black I can cope with, but this makes me think there is something wrong. Do you think he could be planning to do something stupid again?"

Hermione thought about that. Yes, he was acting strangely. He'd been present the last few days, joining in with the activities of everyone else in the house. He'd watched a few programmes on the television with Ginny and Luna, and had gone through all of his notes in great detail with Hermione. He and Luna had attacked the garden, neatening it and planting a few useful magical plants that would fly below the radar of most Muggles, and he'd taken it upon himself to begin clearing the loft of the house in the aim of converting it into a useable third bedroom.

And he'd been nice to everyone during it all. This was most unheard of.

But Hermione didn't exactly think he was planning anything. When he had been before, he hadn't acted like this. It had been obvious what he was up to, which is why it had been so easy for her to stop him. Either he was trying a new tactic, one Hermione was unsure Sirius had the subtlety for, or he was genuinely on board with their current plans. Maybe she was too trusting, but she was inclined to believe Sirius was not faking this.

"I don't think so," she said, in the end. "I don't think Sirius would go for fakery. He knew we disliked what he was doing before, and he was essentially honest enough about his plans. And I don't think he's the kind to go back on a promise, either."

"Perhaps you're right," said Ginny. "I don't know, though. It's strange. Call me untrusting if you like."

"Who's untrusting?" asked Luna, exiting the kitchen with a rush of hot air.

"Everyone should be, a little bit," said Ginny, darkly. Hermione had the funny feeling that her friend was not talking about distrusting Sirius, but about someone else entirely. A feeling apparently shared by Luna.

"I think you've offended Sirius," said Luna, plopping down into her favourite chair. It was funny how they had all formed their favourite places to sit, Hermione thought.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you didn't open the present he gave you this morning. He keeps shooting it dark looks as if the present itself has offended him. I don't think he's very happy about it, but then he does not seem to be holding it personally against you. It seems a very insignificant thing to be so upset about, but there we are. It's not me who is feeling this, and other people's thoughts may vary."

Well, Luna had a point. Hermione had abandoned the little wrapped box on the table when she'd got fed up of his flippancy and gone outside. They'd been so distracted with discussions of cakes and ferries that she'd forgotten all about the present. That was bad manners. Hermione should not have done that.

"Don't go in there, remember," said Ginny. "Look at my hair, if you need a reason why. I think I'm going to go and have a shower. Tried getting it out by magic, it's like he's used a Permanent Sticking Charm." She folded herself gracefully off the floor, and walked out the room. "Luna," she said at the doorway, "call me back when he's finished, yeah? I want to see this." And she was gone.

"I know I shouldn't ask for details, but he's not going to give us food poisoning, is he?"

"I doubt it," said Luna. "Of course, it's his decision whether he follows my advice, but there we are. Life would be boring if we were all the same, wouldn't it?"

"You could also argue life would be boring without the occasional risk of food poisoning."

"You could argue a lot of things," said Luna, "but it isn't always wise to go down that path."

"I thought the Ravenclaw mindset was more that anything was worth discussing, analysing and researching."

"Oh, no, not at all. Only where there is a something to be gained, whether that gain is physical or academic. Arguing for the point of arguing is what I have always thought of as more a Gryffindor trait. Not that our House affiliations have to matter much, not if we don't want it to. Besides, Sirius is almost ready."

The cut between topics made almost no sense, but it didn't have to. Luna also had a fair amount of flour in her hair, or possibly icing sugar, but she appeared unconcerned. Hermione had never spent a protracted amount of time in Luna's company before this little trip into the past, and she found she enjoyed the other girl's company in small doses. Possibly up to a medium-sized dose if Luna spent a lot of time with her books. And if she didn't start talking about imaginary things.

"Luna, do you trust Sirius? Do you think he's planning something?"

"Oh, is that what you and Ginny were discussing?" Luna asked, twirling the ends of her hair around her fingers. "I do and I don't. He's not going to explicitly lie to us, is he? But I wouldn't assume he isn't working on something. He mutters about November in his sleep."

"What happens in November?"

"I don't know, I just need the loo a lot in the night."

Hermione wanted to probe Luna more, but there was a crash behind her and Sirius threw open the slatted double doors to the kitchen. He looked as though he had been attacked by a baker. Flour or icing sugar or whatever it was had made his way into his now-chin length hair, was balanced on his shoulders, and splatted over the front of his t-shirt. It had even made its way down the legs of his jeans and into his eyelashes.

"Done!" he shouted. "Hermione, come and see my creation!"

"We have to wait for Ginny," said Luna, disappearing to knock the bathroom door. Ginny appeared shortly, drying her hair with her wand.

"Ta-da!" Sirius looked very pleased with himself, definitely approaching smug. The cake, and it was a cake, as Hermione had predicted, was a shambles, but it looked edible at the very least. It contained three layers, with jam and cream haphazardly falling out from between them, heavily dusted with icing sugar and dotted with the fake orange and lemon segment sweets beloved by grandparents. And what looked suspiciously like some flying saucer sweets. In between the decorations Sirius had dotted twenty-three candles, all of which were flaming with an obviously magical blue fire.

"Happy birthday!" said Ginny, half-bouncing onto Hermione as she hugged her from behind. "Blow out your candles!"

"Can you even blow out magical fire?" asked Hermione. She pulled her hair back from her face and tried.

It turned out that you couldn't. The cake tasted great, and Sirius was only moderately offended that there had been widespread surprise about that fact. He dusted himself down, to reveal a picture of a hippogriff on his t-shirt that had been entirely covered with flour, and Hermione demonstrated the correct use of a vacuum cleaner to much amazement from the wizarding-raised members of their group. They then had a spirited debate about whether Luna classed as a pureblood or a half-blood; Ginny arguing for the pureblood side as Luna could not recall a Muggle or Muggleborn relative in her family tree, and Sirius arguing that anyone not in the Sacred 28 families or the Potters or Golds, who had apparently been deliberately excluded, would be considered by society a half-blood. It wasn't his own view, apparently, his own was that it 'didn't fucking matter either way'. Luna didn't appear to care.

"Hermione, I have a Shrivelfig to skin with you," said Sirius.

"Yes?"

"Catch," he said, throwing the small wrapped present from earlier through the air towards her head. She fumbled the catch. Picking it up from the carpet, Hermione unwrapped it carefully, and gently opened the little navy-blue box with only a small amount of trepidation. After all, the last time she'd held a small, opened box, she'd been thrown backwards through time and ended up here.

Inside the box was a round, silver locket, with a flower pattern engraved into the front. Hermione fiddled with the catch and it opened, revealing two tiny pictures. One of Ron, wearing an idiotic grin, and one of Harry.

"Sirius," she said, slowly. "Where did you get the photographs?" The tiny Ron winked.

"Ginny, it turns out, had a photograph of some of you at some family wedding or another stashed away in her purse. We duplicated it, and cut it up. The photographic Hermione complained rather a lot at that, as we had to trim some of her hair to do it."

"It's beautiful. And far too lovely. Thank you, Sirius."

"Hey, no problem. I've got gold, and the other me in this time is just spending it on alcohol and motorbike parts right now."

She got up from her seat and hugged him, trying to put into it some of the things she didn't quite have words for about how much she missed Harry and appreciated that he had tried, and sort-of regretted the way she had been with him but not really, because she still didn't think his ideas were any use. She doubted he understood any of it. She wasn't sure she did. But she did leave a very small and unfortunate damp patch on his shoulder.

As she pulled away, Sirius took the necklace from where it was dangling and held it up to her neck.

"Allow me?" he asked. Hermione bent her head forwards slightly in answer, and he put his hands around the back of her neck to clasp the locket closed. As his hands brushed her neck, she felt a small jolt against her skin. A small electric shock, or static build-up. She twisted the locket gently on its chain. She hadn't worn a locket since the Horcrux, the one that Regulus Black had liberated and hidden in Grimmauld Place, and Ron had destroyed, but Sirius wouldn't have known that. She'd never told him the Horcrux had been a locket.

It didn't feel as alien as she supposed it would. The metal was warm against her skin, not cold and clammy and dangerous. It spoke to her of love and of a hope she would see her friend and her boyfriend again, not of fear and the ever growing dread of war.

It was a further step towards healing, and Hermione had realised long ago that all the journey onwards from the war in her life would be a journey of healing from it and trying to move on. She never fully would. Her life was too much a part of that.

"Ginny, do you mind that I'm carrying a photograph of your fiancé around my neck?" she asked, to return herself to the world she was currently in and not the one of the Horcruxes.

"Nah," said Ginny. "I think I did find it weird at one point, you know, how you and Harry will always be so close. But look at what you did. I don't find it weird any more, at all."

"Good."

They sat around after that, long into the night, drinking some ridiculous Muggle alcohol Sirius had bought from the corner shop and eating far more cake than anyone should. Hermione had ridiculed Ginny's suggestion of getting drunk tonight to begin with. As much as anything else, she didn't much like getting drunk, and would certainly never do it on a Tuesday.

Tonight, she sat in her favourite chair, everyone in their usual spaces, singing along to the old, current, songs on the radio and even getting up to dance. Sirius was in a better mood than she had ever seen him, and the alcohol was making it seem less suspicious. She could resolve those thoughts tomorrow.

Everything became pushed until tomorrow as the alcohol lent a soft, fuzzy feeling to her thoughts. The last vestiges of her sober mind were shouting to her that people were dying, people's lives were being ruined, and she ought to be sad about that not enjoying an evening with friends. That if she couldn't change it, she should at least feel it as a penance. Hermione shrugged it off as best she could.

Sober Hermione thought of those who would die every day, and worried for every one of them. The Hermione who had been drinking brandy was able to forget them for a few hours, and this was good. She wanted to help them, she really did. But she couldn't, and however much she justified it, it hurt.

She even managed to block the wish to go home, except when she opened the locket again as she went to bed.


	15. Chapter 15: Mudblood

**Chapter 15: Mudblood**

[Content warning: Death Eaters doing horrible Death Eater things, death of a (very) minor character, use of Crucio]

 _Regulus  
October 1978, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

The owl arrived at breakfast.

Every time Regulus had received post since the visit to the Hogs Head, in September, he had been closely watched by many of his fellow Slytherin seventh-years. It had never been what they had hoped. Owls received by Regulus were frequently from his mother, updating him on the progress of his engagement, or his father, updating him on other matters pertaining to the family. Sometimes Bella would owl, to remind him how proud she was of him, or Narcissa. She talked of little but her desire for a child.

Andromeda had owled once, but he'd burnt that unread.

This one was not a Black family owl, or even the ones belonging to one of his cousins. He pulled the scroll from the owls leg, cut the seal deftly with his butter knife, and opened it up.

 _Black,_

 _I hope all is well with your upcoming engagement. The Fawley girl is a good match. Our mutual friend is much impressed, and begs an invitation to the engagement party. I'd like one, too. You should write your mother._

 _As promised, I write with details of my own event. Saturday, the place we met before. It should go without saying that I extend the invitation to any guest of yours who can be relied upon to attend. It promises to be an excellent night. No elf-made wine, as there will be at your party, but we may be able to get some Firewhisky or something._

 _Don't be late, you know the time. It's always the same._

 _Don't bring anyone that would get us into trouble with a teacher._

 _Avery_

It read as though Regulus was being invited to sneak out to drinking session, which he supposed was rather the point. Anyone intercepting it would assume they were up to no good, yes, but not anything out of the ordinary. Something that might get a point loss and detention, not Azkaban.

Regulus was more than aware of the penalties for what he was doing. But they were mostly academic when the Ministry had seemingly no desire to catch Death Eaters. It suggested most of them were sympathetic, and knew that this was the right course of action. They were simply too scared to do what was right.

He stashed the letter in his pocket, and wished that Mulciber and Porter would stop staring at him. Acting exactly as you were expected to act was the key to not being suspected, and staring at someone's post like that was not how students usually behaved. Slughorn wouldn't notice, he never did at breakfast. One of the sharper-eyed teachers might.

Regulus was an expert at not being detected. He knew perfectly well that he was the only student in this school wearing the Dark Mark on their arm, and he was one of the only sixth- and seventh-year Slytherins who had not been called in by Dumbledore for a discussion on the perils of joining the Dark Lord.

Regulus knew how to act as though this was not something he was interested in. As far as anyone outside of his closest friends was concerned, he was a law-abiding pureblood who wished to make a decent marriage and learn to run his family. He had discussed with Slughorn perhaps taking a Ministry job to give him something to do until his father died, and Slughorn had passed on the details of some contacts in the Department of International Magical Cooperation which he thought would be suited to Regulus. He'd also recommended Gringotts Bank to Regulus, who had promised to follow that up. A man should make the most of his contacts, and it did nobody any favours to act churlish.

Selwyn understood more than the others how these things worked. He'd been called in by Dumbledore, but had learnt caution from it.

"Black, have we got Transfiguration first thing?"

"Yes."

"How's the homework coming?"

"Badly. Saturday, by the way. I'll take you down, I'm not revealing the meeting point in advance, to avoid the presence of anyone we do not wish to be accompanied by."

"Where shall I meet you?"

"Herbology greenhouses."

Selwyn raised an eyebrow, but he didn't question it. This one would go far. Unlike the three faces now staring at him, with Alecto Carrow's having been added to the set.

Regulus pushed the remains of his breakfast away and stalked out of the Great Hall, before anyone could draw any more attention to him. Instead, he began to walk up to Transfiguration.

By the end of the day, the message had been passed to everyone Regulus wanted to know, and he was beginning to despair in the stupidity of several of the idiots in his house. Some of them knew how to play this game, like Selwyn did, but the vast majority of them clearly did not. Porter had almost caused McGonagall to become suspicious, and everyone knew she was spying for the Ministry. Carrow had accosted him, demanding details, in the Entrance Hall and he'd had to pretend he had no idea what she was on about to avoid Flitwick becoming suspicious.

If any of them got his name onto the list of people to be watched, Regulus would make certain that the Dark Lord knew about it.

Regulus' job here only worked while he was above suspicion, and Bellatrix had made that perfectly clear. She had taught him certain charms that would make his Dark Mark much harder to detect, but a wizard such as Dumbledore would find them light work to remove. Besides, Regulus had no desire to cover it. He was proud of the choices he had made for his family. But if the best way to achieve his own aims, and those of the Dark Lord, was to pretend he did not have the Mark, then that was what Regulus would do.

He found himself a chair in a quieter corner of the Slytherin common room after dinner, selected a green velvet recliner, and pulled out his Potions books. The Dark Lord was most interested in Professor Slughorn. Regulus intended to remain on the Potions master's good side, in case his assistance was needed. Therefore, he needed to complete this essay and to do it well.

No sooner had he put quill to parchment that a particularly unwelcome face appeared next to him, that of Amycus, Alecto Carrow's younger brother. If Regulus had been reluctant to allow Alecto to join his group, then Amycus was even less welcome. The boy was fifteen, so not even of age, and possessed even less subtlety than his sister. The boy was useless, and pointlessly cruel.

"Black, I hear you have information."

"I may or may not have information. It depends on what you are asking about. And none of it is for you, as it mostly pertains to seventh-year business."

Even in the relative safety of the Slytherin common room, it was unwise to talk freely.

"I'm sixteen next week. I'm old enough."

"Sixteen is a boy."

"Alecto says you were given a trial at sixteen."

"If Alecto cannot keep her mouth shut on private matters, then she will find herself receiving no information, either. I suggest you pass that message on, and that you do not come back here."

"I think you're having us all on."

"Do you? I have no need to persuade young boys, who beat up eleven-year-olds for fun, of my credentials, Carrow. Those who need to know of my loyalties are in no doubt. Men of my breeding and contacts have no need to be, what was it, having anyone on."

"Show me it!"

"Show you what? My Potions homework?"

The boy was ridiculous, and annoying, but Regulus was almost having fun with him. He riled so easily. But no. His mother had taught him not to pick on those purebloods lower down the social scale than he was, after all, they may be of use one day. And besides, that was Sirius' job.

Regulus was sure he could come up with a use for Amycus Carrow, just not one that required discretion or that would link the boy to him.

A decoy, perhaps.

"You know what I mean, Black!" hissed Amycus. At least he understood to talk quietly, unlike his sister. But then his sister knew where she stood relative to Regulus in the social hierarchies and in the favour of the Dark Lord, and Amycus clearly did not.

"I will show you what you desire, when you have proved that you are worthy of it."

The smaller boy puffed his rather pudgy chest at that. Yes, Regulus was playing this well. He allowed the boy a smile.

"Your sister needs to be informed of the importance of discretion. Perhaps you can get that through to her. We have some work to do, which must remain undetected by the Hogwarts staff. Almost all of them are known to be hostile to the Dark Lord's intentions, and their knowledge of his plans would be catastrophic for our success. Now, there's a very simple way you can help us, and if you can do a few of these small tasks for me then I can look into putting in a word for you."

"I'll do whatever it takes, Black," said the boy solemnly.

"Good." Oh yes, Regulus was pleased with himself here. He'd turned a potentially dangerous situation into a rather positive outcome, even if he did say so himself.

That Saturday night, Regulus made sure to be the last down to the meeting place agreed by the Herbology classrooms. He'd set Amycus Carrow off with the task of causing enough of a distraction that their disappearance from the Hogwarts grounds would not be noticed. He still had his doubts about the boy, but he was keen for the task and it saved Regulus the bother.

That said, he did not want to run the risk of personally being caught, and was sure to remain in full sight of Madam Pince in the library until five minutes after the others in his group would have arrived. That was long enough for any discovery to have been made, he was sure.

"Black, you're late," said Porter, as Regulus strolled into view.

"I'm in charge, so perhaps you are early," said Regulus, channelling everything his father had ever told him about asserting your authority. "Let us go. It would not do to linger here."

Turning with a swish of his brand-new, fur-lined cloak, Regulus led the little group of aspiring Death Eaters towards the Whomping Willow in the school grounds. Severus Snape would not admit to how he had gained this knowledge, but had assured Regulus that a secret passageway lead from underneath the tree to the Shrieking Shack just outside Hogsmeade and that the Shack was most definitely not haunted. Regulus was not scared of ghosts or ghouls, but it was better if none troubled them tonight. The others all followed, most meekly and quietly and Porter with some grumbling. That was fine. Regulus would have the upper hand tonight, and Porter could whine all he liked about the small things.

Severus' information had been exactly correct, and the passageway took them through to the battered old building. Regulus gathered his group together in there. So far, all they knew was that they would be asked to prove themselves, and the time and location of the meeting place. Regulus was now able to provide at least some of the rest of the information, but to give it all away would of course spoil some of the surprise.

"There are some Muggleborn and blood-traitor families who have been proving resistant to the changes wizarding society needs," he began. All eyes were on him, and he adjusted the clasp of his cloak and the fall of his dark hair over his eye. "As you will understand, they need to be taught of their wrongs. The Dark Lord would value your assistance, provided of course that you are willing to do what is necessary."

Several nods from the assembled witch and wizards, and a few determined faces. Regulus was pleased.

"This will be heavily coordinated, and in a few moments time some of my esteemed fellows will arrive to take you to your destinations. I cannot, and will not, say more about what you may be asked to do. I will warn you that to do anything other than what is requested of you will not be the way to winning the favour of the Dark Lord. He does not look kindly on those who refuse his bidding. This is your chance to impress, and I would use it as best you can."

"Did you have to do this?" asked Selwyn. He was relaxed, leaning against the walls of the Shack with his cloak thrown back over one shoulder.

"Of course. I had to prove myself as you will. I may have been vouched for by my cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, and my cousin-in-law Lucius Malfoy, both held in the trust of the Dark Lord, but I would not have been accepted had I not displayed my loyalty."

"Will you show us?" asked Alecto Carrow.

Regulus wondered what possessed these Carrows to be repeatedly asking for proof. His word, and that of Avery, had been enough for the others.

"Certainly." It had no harm, not in this place. Not given what they were about to be asked to do. He rolled up the sleeves of his robes, black like those of the Hogwarts uniform, but with a much more flattering cut and expensive fabric. Porter was wearing his school robes still, although the others had been blessed with the sense to change.

The Dark Mark was revealed on his arm. It was not as dark as it sometimes was, having faded from the call earlier that evening that would assemble the rest of the Marked Death Eaters with the Lord, the call Regulus had been told to ignore. He had work here, and it was of course permitted to ignore the call if you were under orders elsewhere. It still looked impressive, the skull and snake black against his pale skin.

And it got him a few appreciative gasps.

"Did it hurt?" asked Mulciber, who hadn't yet spoken the whole evening.

"Any pain it cost is a small price to pay for the benefits it will bring," said Regulus, rolling the sleeve back down. He'd ordinarily wear it up, here where he could be open about his allegiance, but the autumn winds were cold. And, besides, other Death Eaters would arrive at any moment, and Regulus did not wish to be perceived as showing off.

Severus Snape, the older Mulciber brother, and Lucius had been sent to collect the newest set, and they duly arrived, splitting the recruits off into three groups for the locations they had chosen to target that night.

"Come along, Black," said Severus Snape, having gathered up Selwyn and Carrow. "You're with me."

Regulus knew Severus well enough. He'd been only a year above him at Hogwarts, and had been approached by Lucius Malfoy at the same time. With Snape being older, he had been allowed to take the Mark six months before Regulus had, which Lucius had assured Regulus was just because Snape no longer had the Trace on him, and not because the half-blood was any of a better wizard or presumed to be more loyal than Regulus was.

Regulus saw no reason Lucius would lie. Besides, Regulus knew enough Legilimency to prove that he was not. Bella had told him Lucius had no skill at Occlumency, and it was obvious that was correct. Lucius had many talents, but the subtleties of mind magic were not one of them. The man overly relied on his charisma.

"The Devon address?" asked Regulus.

"Yes," said Snape.

Regulus arrived into a quiet, dark street in a small village. The houses lining the street were all much of a sameness, two stories high with neat gardens and the light on in the front window. Their target was number eleven, which looked as unremarkable as the rest. Muggles were strange creatures, with their love of uniformity.

Next to him, Snape arrived with a soft crack, then Selwyn, and finally Carrow. Hers was the loudest noise, causing a nearby dog-walker to turn around and goggle at the people that had surely not been there a moment before.

Carrow raised her wand, but Snape knocked it back down.  
"Muggles are stupid," he said. "She won't even think of anything in five minutes time, she'll have convinced herself it's a trick of the light."

"All the more reason to kill her," said Carrow.

"And bring the Ministry down on us before we can start?" asked Snape, with barely disguised disdain. "Carrow, if you are going to be rash and stupid, I suggest you leave now. Or perhaps this is a deliberate sabotage. Either way, I for one intend to complete this task."

"Isn't your father a Muggle?" she asked. The look on her face was one of loathing. "I'll put you down as a Muggle-lover."

"He was," said Snape, shortly. "He's dead, and that is the best place for him."

Before either of them could continue, Selwyn lazily pointed into the middle distance. "Our friends," he said.

"Oh look, tiny little students," cackled Bellatrix. Carrow bristled visibly at Bella's comment. Regulus had no desire to rise to the bait. Selwyn bounced over on the balls of his feet to greet Bellatrix and Rodolphus, shaking Rodolphus' hand and kissing Bella on both cheeks. His family knew the Lestrange family socially, and they had all doubtless been introduced formally at some point.

"Evening," said Rodolphus.

"Evening," nodded Snape in return. "We should be getting into position."

"I don't recall who put you in charge," said Bellatrix, pulling her wand out.

Snape was not engaging in that, it was clear, and started off striding towards their ultimate destination. Regulus followed at his side, unwilling to show even a moment's hesitation despite his wish to show loyalty to Bella. She would fall in line, he knew, Bella never wasted any time when under orders from the Dark Lord. Selwyn, Carrow, and Rodolphus brought up the rear.

They stopped outside number eleven. The light in the front room was on, and Regulus could see through the window three people sat on chairs and sofas, staring at the back of a box. As good as Muggles, these people, not any better for their supposed magic. The house was neatly kept, everything in its place both outside and in the living room. Flowers in pots adorned the edges of the path, red to match the painted front door and shades of yellow. That much was the only indicator of magic; flowers like that would never ordinarily bloom in October.

Snape, at the front of the group, raised his hand as if to use the silver knocker, but Bella pushed past. The door unlocked and flew open with a flick of her wand. Regulus followed her in.

"Who's there?" came a quavery voice from the direction of the living room. "Amanda, is that you?"

"Amanda?" shouted Bellatrix. "I thought even this kind of scum had better taste! Real wizards would use a real wizarding name."

"Who are you?" An old man stood in the doorway ahead of them, to what looked like a warm and inviting kitchen. He leant on a walking stick, and the remaining wisps of hair on his head were of a pure white. "What do you want with my family?"

"Oh, so you're responsible for this abomination?" asked Bella. She was brandishing her wand in his direction, her hand shaking. The new recruits may have confused that for nerves, but Regulus knew different.

"Bella," said Rodolphus, putting a hand on her arm. "Not yet."

"Get them all in the front room," said Snape to Regulus and Selwyn. "Check everywhere."

Selwyn grabbed the old man by his arm and steered him into the front room, depositing him there with Alecto Carrow standing watch on the door. Inside, Snape was checking the four assembled adults for wands.

"Wands?" a woman in a green dress was shouting. "Magic wands, are you talking about? Whatever's going on here, I promise you I know nothing of it, I'm not mixed up in anything, I'm just the neighbour! I live at number ten!"

Regulus turned away from her, and from the others in the room, and started up the carpeted stairs. He'd never been inside a house like this before. The pictures that lined the wall of the stairs were not moving, and from his understanding of these things never would. That was strange and unnatural enough, before one got into the rest of these trappings. They did live like animals, Muggles and Mudbloods.

Upstairs, all of the rooms bore traces of magic. Selwyn took the master bedroom and the bathroom, and reported them both empty. Regulus checked the two smaller bedrooms. Also empty. One of them was adorned with Hufflepuff banners with stripped-back bed. The other was less obviously magical, but the quills and parchment and the charms on the door suggested a witch or a wizard occupied it.

" _Homenum Revelio_ ," muttered Regulus, sweeping his wand around the abandoned bedroom. As he had suspected, there was nobody here. He walked out onto the landing, where Selwyn stood examining a small brush on a white stick from the bathroom.

"Nothing," said Regulus. "Downstairs." Selwyn threw the tiny brush aside and walked down the stairs, past the suspiciously still photographs again. The wall behind them was covered with a cheery striped paper, the banisters a dark brown.

Alecto Carrow still stood guard on the door downstairs. Inside the sitting room, Snape was examining the wands he had removed from two of those inside the room. Rodolphus had his trained on the four captives almost lazily, his tall figure relaxing into a chair.

"Nobody's up there," said Regulus, taking a spot by the fireplace. "We did a thorough check."

"Excellent work, Black," said Rodolphus. "Let's get on with it. Carrow, get in here. Do you want to cast the first curse, or should we get Selwyn to?"

"Me," said Alecto, her face set and her eyes glistening. She was more than ready for this, and whatever Regulus thought of her and her brother, this was a test she could pass with ease. She certainly had the dedication.

"Go slowly," said Rodolphus. "We don't want to kill before we have properly taught the lessons, after all. Which do you choose? The old man and the woman in red are the Muggles, the other two Mudbloods. It would be interesting to know how they think they're entitled to join our world, would it not?"

Rodolphus never rushed anything. He was clever, calm and calculated, his dark eyes focused on his task at hand. Nothing rattled him, and he was an expert at information gathering. Rumour was the Dark Lord favoured him for those tasks above all others.

"Choose one!" urged Bellatrix, as Alecto Carrow surveyed the group with her wand raised. "Choose a Mudblood! The Muggles are worthless scum, best eradicated quickly!"

Alecto prodded the older of the two women up with her wand. "You," she said, a hardness in her voice that had not been present earlier in the day.

"Go on," said Snape, almost bored.

" _Crucio!_ " shouted Alecto, and the woman fell to the floor with the pain. Her screams seemed to fill the room and spill out through the door. The green-dress woman cowered away from it on the sofa, the younger woman made to grab for her, and the grey-haired man stood up.

"I am a veteran of the War, and I will not stand for this!" He raised his stick and cracked Alecto around the head with it, who screamed and dropped her wand. The woman on the floor's screams subsided, and she collapsed into a soft heap. The younger woman threw herself on top of her, muttering pointless platitudes into her ear. None of this would help. Regulus was honestly surprised they hadn't worked that out by now. Mudbloods and Muggles really were as stupid as they came.

" _Avada Kedrava!_ " shouted Bellatrix, and the old man crumpled to the floor. "You mean nothing, old man! You threaten us, and we remove you from the Dark Lord's earth!"

"Bella," said Rodolphus. "Leave some for the newcomers, please. Well done, Alecto, but you were slow to defend yourself. Never should you be able to be bested by a Muggle, and you should never lower your wand. A good fighter can continue her spellwork through physical pain."

"I'm sorry, Mr Lestrange," said Alecto, her head bowed. "I'll do better next time."

"See that you do," said Snape from the shadows. "Selwyn, your turn."

Selwyn stepped forwards, and took aim. He cast a series of non-verbal curses, shooting blue flames at the pair on the ground until both were silently writhing around on the floor.

"What are you doing?" shouted Bellatrix. Bella was always one to use the classics, and deeply mistrustful of new spellwork. Snape, on the other hand, was watching with barely-disguised interest, the first time he had looked truly animated in the entire evening.

"Oh, I prefer not to have to suffer their screams," said Selwyn, flicking his wand once more and causing the younger woman to flip onto her back. "Rather ruins the experience, for me. I know what I can do, I don't need the screams as some amateur kind of proof."

The woman in green was sobbing on the sofa, screaming that she was just the neighbour, nothing to do with all of this, and that she would call the police. Regulus agreed with Selwyn about having to listen to all the infernal noise of people being taught their lesson. It just wasn't necessary. He cast a Silencing Charm on the woman, and her face went a strange shade of purple as she realised her ranting was completely worthless. Just as she was.

"Stop, Selwyn," said Snape. "You'll tell me what you used, afterwards. Carrow. Try again."

As Alecto raised her wand once more, there was a rustling outside. The screams came back. Regulus also had an interest in whatever spell Selwyn had used. This really was a more barbaric method than he would prefer.

Snape stood at the window, looking out.

"We may be being watched," he said. "Best to wrap up, for tonight."

"Regulus, finish them," said Rodolphus.

Regulus started. He'd not thought he would be asked to do this, not yet, not now. He wasn't prepared to kill. He had never killed. He had thought that perhaps he would, later, after he had finished his schooling. There was no doubt that these people, this scum, deserved to die. They had almost certainly defrauded proper, pureblooded witches and wizards to be able to access Hogwarts and wands. They were dirty, a stain on the very fabric of wizarding society. But Regulus had not thought he would be asked to kill one.

To kill a person.

But they weren't really people, were they? Not in the same way he was, and his family, and the rest of them here in this room. Closer to monkeys, they were of an intelligence near to the true wizard but not close enough. It would be like putting down a dog. Almost a kindness.

He would do this, because he had to. He could justify anyone else doing it, so he should be able to.

Bella had. Rodolphus. Snape, and he was just a half-blood. Lucius. Avery. Everyone.

He pulled his wand from it's holder on his hip, and stepped forwards. He steadied himself, and made to cast.

" _Avada Kedrava!_ "

A lot of things happened, all at the same time. Regulus was knocked sideways by the ceiling falling into him, and the heavy weight of a man landed on his chest. The green of his curse shot into the air, causing a further fall of ceiling behind the sofa. Bellatrix began to fire off spells and curses, Rodolphus and Selwyn joining her. Alecto Carrow was half-trapped under a piece of ceiling, looking confused.

"Reducto!" shouted a gruff voice, one highly familiar to Regulus. His brother, Sirius, pulled himself up from Regulus' body and shouted a Shield Charm towards the Muggles and Mudbloods on the floor. He leapt off into the fight, tackling Bella first.

Regulus picked himself up, blasting the debris of the ceiling off himself the way his brother had done moments earlier. He was immediately engaged by one of his brothers' friends, the sandy-haired one that it was rumoured was a werewolf. The man was a fierce fighter, and it was all Regulus could do to keep him in check as well as dodging the miscellaneous other curses that were coming their way. It would not do to fall to a spell cast by one of their own side.

"Get out!" shouted Rodolphus, and grabbed his wife before Apparating away.

With his opponent having disappeared, Sirius cast around the room for another fight to join in on. He engaged Alecto briefly before she too Disapparated, and then his eyes locked on to Regulus still fighting the wolf.

"Regulus, you utter fucking moron!" he shouted, and Regulus ducked his curse.

Snape appeared at his shoulder. "Time to go," he said, and firmly took Regulus by the arm.

They arrived back at the Shrieking Shack, kicking up a storm of dust as they landed in the dilapidated building. Snape was bleeding slightly from the arm, and as soon as they had landed turned to begin healing it. Regulus was unharmed, if a little dusty from the fall of the ceiling.

"Place will be swarming with Ministry twats, by now," said Rodolphus, from the corner. He had a black eye forming on the left side of his face, his dark hair coming loose from the band that held it from his face. "Wasn't that your brother, too, Black?"

"Yes," said Regulus, grimacing. He had few encounters with his brother these days; in fact, that was the first since Sirius had left Hogwarts in the summer. Regulus actively welcomed this lack of contact with Sirius. The boy had been stupid and rash, with ridiculous political views. The man seemed to be determined to bring as much shame to the family as possible, and most likely get himself killed by an associate of theirs.

"He's in with the Order of the Phoenix, isn't he?" asked Snape. "I assume so, at least, from the way he turns up to make a nuisance of himself with worrying regularity."

"I've always assumed so," said Regulus. He was not certain of that, but the way Sirius was spoken of within the circles of the family, his friends, and the wider pool of Death Eaters suggested Sirius was at the very least a blood traitor of the worst sort, if not a fully-inducted member of that society. Whether he was a member or not mattered little to Regulus. He was no brother of his, not when it came down to it, and if he was asked to remove Sirius he most certainly would. "He's a stain on our family tree, whether he is or isn't."

"Well spoken," said Rodolphus.

"Where's Bella?" asked Regulus, keen to have the subject move away from Sirius. Everyone else who had been out with them that evening was present. Selwyn was sat on the ripped sofa, watching the exchange between the other three men, and Alecto was on the floor, fixing a rip in her robes.

"She went off," replied Rodolphus. He never seemed overly concerned as to the whereabouts of Bella, and cared only slightly for her when she was in his presence. Regulus knew it was a duty marriage. Rodolphus had asked for Andromeda's hand, and been shunted off to Bella after Andromeda's little betrayal. They both hoped for a child soon, and after they were successful Regulus thought it likely they would live almost completely separately until the time came for a second. "Gone to check on the progress of our esteemed fellows."

"You did well tonight, Black," said Snape. "You'd have made your first kill if not for your idiot brother. A man should have a drink after his first, and I'll offer you one in advance. You won't have to wait long for the joy, I'm sure."

Regulus took the conjured tumbler from Snape. He didn't feel much about the Muggle he had almost killed, and he wondered if he should have. Of course not. Everyone else had done it, all the others who wore the Mark. He would do it, and it would be a nothing. A few deaths of the worthless end of society were the price you had to pay for things being the right way, that was what everyone said, and Regulus more than believed it.


	16. Chapter 16: Muggleborn

**a/n: some mentions of torture/death from the previous chapter. Sirius swears a lot. If I was a psychiatrist I'd say he was showing many of the signs of clinical depression by this point.**

 **Chapter Sixteen: Muggleborn**

 _Sirius_

 _October 1978, Devon_

Sirius hovered outside the house in Devon with the rest of them. He hated every minute of this fucking ridiculous sham.

Watching this was essentially a pointless act, in terms of what would happen to the Muggleborns and the Muggles inside the house. Nothing they were allowed to do would help them, and being here hanging around doing nothing certainly didn't help either.

Rather, it was a carefully cultivated exercise in gaining Hermione's trust. He would act exactly as she would want him to act, and she would know that he was to be trusted. She quite clearly did not trust him right now, and if he was to convince her to do something he would need every ounce of her goodwill. He had a week left, after all. Tonight was Halloween. Voldy loved a good Halloween attack.

He could feel Hermione's eyes on him from where she was hiding at the side of the house. This was something of a test, he thought. She might not know she was testing him, but she was. She wanted him to prove he would do as he was told without him needing to say anything.

Sirius had been on the receiving end of this kind of behaviour from girlfriends. Sometimes it had been justified, and sometimes it most definitely had not. One had threatened to curse his cock off if he so much as looked at other women. He'd believed her, she was scary. She'd actually accused him of staring at McGonagall in a sexualised manner.

Well, he might have done that once. For an older lady, she was alright looking, and she was bloody clever. Sirius liked a clever woman.

Still, that was an extreme case. And the point was, he knew how to behave when a woman was testing him. If you wanted rid of her, you deliberately failed so as not to have to dump her. Well, James or Remus or even Peter would have just spoken to her and calmly dumped her, but Sirius had never quite managed that. If you wanted to keep her, you damn well passed the test.

He had been frequently told his attitude to women was terrible, but it wasn't like he had any other method with them. If he tried it the way Peter and Remus had always done it, all respectful, the women assumed he was trying to be an arse. He had no idea why, but that was the truth of it.

That still wasn't the point. He would pass Hermione's test, because he needed to keep this woman. Not in that way, oh Merlin no, fucking hell, but he needed to keep her on side. As a friend. He was more than certain she would never even think of him in that way. An old, haggard, ex-con, with a reluctance to brush his hair and a sob-story behind him that nobody would have believed had they not had Remus to corroborate at least half of it. She was attractive, yes, he was allowed to think that without wanting to do anything, young, and smart woman. She had a sob-story, too, but hers was surmountable. There was a happy childhood in there, he knew, and likely some happiness after Voldemort. A successful relationship, he gathered. He had his parents and twelve years in Azkaban, and had never once managed a relationship that lasted longer than eleven months and twelve days, and he had never wanted one to last longer than that.

Tonight, Sirius knew, was the night Regulus had been asked to kill. He had no idea if his brother had done it before tonight, but something about what he'd been able to hear from the upper floor of the house had suggested that he had not. A jet of green light would have appeared from the end of Regulus' wand, and Sirius had heard his voice clearly say the words of the Killing Curse. Seventeen, and he was prepared to murder.

The curse hit nobody, the Muggle that had died was not hit. He must have been killed earlier in the depraved little fucking torture session they'd been having themselves. What Regulus' involvement in that had been, Sirius did not know, but he knew that his brother did not shy away from the killing of innocents. Whether he succeeded or not didn't matter. He'd tried, the fucking little bastard.

The younger Sirius was in the house to hear it, and the older one was outside watching from a distance. He should bear witness to this, to what he was condemning to happen. To his brother's slide into darkness.

When it was done, and the Death Eaters Apparated away, he didn't stick around. Moody was standing out the front, the dead body of the Muggle who'd died on the floor at his feet. They would claim he'd had a heart attack. The Muggleborn witches, being helped out of the house by Remus, would go to St Mungo's for a bit, and then the Ministry would find them a safe house. Two weeks later, the Order would find them another one, as they were certain the Ministry had been infiltrated. The Muggle would be Obliviated.

"Time to go," said Sirius. It was better they left, before the Order started to check for the presence of anyone else around the house. Moody tended to do that as a matter of course, after they'd been caught up in a secondary attack from some Death Eaters who'd sneaked up on their attempts to heal those caught in the first attack.

They walked down the street, far enough away to not have been caught up by any detection spells of Moody's. They let themselves into a small park, Sirius leading and the three girls trailing behind. Hermione's face was ashen and unmoving, Ginny was crying. Luna was, too. Sirius was struggling to feel anything at all. He sat on a swing, which moved rather disconcertingly underneath him.

This was supposed to be a victory. It was supposed to be a moment of celebration.

Certainly, the first time around, they'd seen it as one. They'd cheered the arrivals back at the new Headquarters, and it had felt like success. They'd raised a glass in remembrance to the Muggle who had been unfairly killed, of course, and stood in silence for a moment to honour him. But they had saved three, and that was to be applauded. Sirius had been treated as a hero, and he'd lapped it all up like someone who didn't really know what war fucking was.

This time, it felt like a let down.

November was sneaking closer, and nothing was changing. They'd saved this family, but there would be more who would die. Regulus was still stuck in all of this. Everything was still wrong.

"Sirius?" Hermione was next to him, settling herself on the neighbouring swing. "How are you?"

"Well, we've just watched some lives be saved, but I watched my brother try and kill someone. Someone did die. My brother did not kill anyone personally."

"Mixed, then."

"Yeah, mixed."

She put her hand on his arm. He tensed up.

"I really struggled, tonight, you know. Their faces. It was horrible, wasn't it?"

"That's what it looked like. All the time."

"I only went on an Order mission that didn't directly involve Harry once. He was at his aunt and uncle's house, I had… well I'd left my parents' house, and I'd gone to The Burrow. A few of the others were heading out, and I was of age, and they couldn't refuse when I asked to join them. I saw enough that night, I think."

He scoffed. She had seen enough after one night. How many times did she think he'd done this? "I've lost count of how many times I've seen all of this," he said. He couldn't blow up at her. Not when this much was at stake.

"I've always struggled with what to say after this sort of thing. I mean, when everything's been done, and you're sat around pondering things, what do you say?"

"I don't know," Sirius admitted. "I've never known. I used to let others do the pretty words. Remus and James and Peter were all good at them, and so was Lily."

"I hate every minute of all of this," said Ginny. Her tears had dried, but the red rings around her eyes remained. "So many people."

"I don't understand it," said Luna.

"I hate it all too," said Hermione.

"Do you?" he asked. "Do you really?" Sirius trained his voice to be calm. He felt nothing of the sort. Why was she even saying this to him, now of all times? If she truly hated this, of course she would do something about it, like he wanted to. This was the wrong time to be bringing it up, when he was angry, but he felt so fucking powerless to find the right time. Though she was emotional, too. It was manipulative, like his bloody father would do, but it might just work.

"Yes, of course I do," she said. She tried to meet his eyes. Sirius looked at the grass. It was scuffed where the feet of hundreds of children had battered it, and none of it grew in the most heavily used areas.

"Do something about it, then." He was still calm, but the harshness he couldn't help. He had to stop this soon.

"Sirius, come on, you know we can't!"

"No, I don't. I agreed to this compromise to make everyone else happy, not because it was what I wanted. My position has not changed, not one bit. My intentions have, in the short term, because I don't break promises. I promised to give this approach a go. I can't promise to do it forever.

"But what I want to do, well, that's the same as it was and the same as it will be, and I'm fairly sure all of this is going to make me go nuts one of these days. If I'm not already. Because I feel close to it, Hermione, and that's how I feel. Like a fucking Filibuster firework ready to go off, except someone's dipped me in water and I can't quite do it.

"Fucking watching my brother try and kill innocents? Fucking sit here talking about it afterwards as if we'd read a horrible book that we didn't much care for the plot of? I can't. I can't fucking do this and I want to curse something or kick something or… I don't even know! It's fucking killing me and I wish I'd chosen to stay fucking dead!"

"Sirius, I…" Hermione was trying to talk to him, but he didn't feel like waiting for an answer. He was beholden enough to her already. She wasn't going to change.

There was the possibility she had been right about all of this, and it would cause a disaster. He'd thought about that in great detail. He continued to think about it in great fucking detail, in fact, and he was sure his brain could come up with a thousand different ways he could fuck up any given reality.

Maybe that meant she was right. They shouldn't interfere.

Distracted, his Apparition was off, and instead of landing neatly into the alleyway behind their house as he had intended to, he arrived straddling the neighbour's fence. With only a part of a second to influence it, he tried to fall into the alleyway, but misjudged the tip of his body and landed on his shoulder in the neighbour's garden instead. The pain distracted from his righteous anger, at least, and he momentarily felt less like hexing the place to the ground.

"And what are you doing in my garden, quite like this?"

Looming over him was the grey-haired witch neighbour that Hermione had been for tea with a couple of times. Sirius sighed. At least if anyone had to see that disaster it was a fellow member of the magical community, as it would be easier to explain. But he would have massively preferred it if nobody had.

Well, it was possible she wouldn't recognise him as the man from next door, not with half a plant scattered all over him and the mud smeared over his face.

"Apparition was off. Sorry. Won't happen again."

"Damn right it won't, young man. You've brought down half a panel of trellis, that's where my tomatoes go in the summer."

"Young man," muttered Sirius, picking himself up for the second time that evening.

"Everyone younger than me is young man, or young lass, to me," she said. "Now you'll fix my plant before you go, and then you'll come in for a cup of tea. I've been wanting to meet you."

"Really, don't trouble yourself," he said. The last thing he wanted was tea and inane chatter. He'd smash up a fucking teacup if he wasn't careful. "I'll fix this, and then I'll go."

"Nonsense," she said. "I'll pop the kettle on." She clacked back into the house in some ridiculous wooden-soled shoes, leaving the door open behind.

" _Reparo_ ," grumbled Sirius, and followed her in against his better wishes. Unless he wanted to try Apparition again, or scaling the fence, there was no other way out of this garden anyway. He considered a well placed Reducto, but he'd only just fixed the fence. There was no point doing the same job twice, and he'd done a shit job the first time.

"You're the one living with Hermione and her friends, aren't you?" said the woman, now fiddling around with tea leaves and a kettle that Sirius was certain was quietly singing an old Astoria Smith tune rather than whistling as kettles should do. Fucking witches.

"Against my better judgement, yes," said Sirius, taking a seat. He hadn't been offered one, but if he was going to do this he'd be damned if he stood the whole time.

"Grumpy one, aren't you? Not normally one for grumpy men, but you're alright looking so I'll let you off. I'm Jo, by the way. I don't know what Hermione has said about me, and it's perhaps the less the better. I talk a lot. Comes from living alone, but I had the tendency for it from childhood. One could say it has been exacerbated."

"Sirius." All she needed to know was his name, and he wasn't even sure she needed that.

"Oh yes, I know who you are. Hermione won't be drawn on much about you, though. You come from London, mid-thirties, like rock bands. I've seen you turn into a black dog in the garden. Lucky I'm not the suspicious sort, or I'd have assumed my death several times now. Animagus, or just very good at self-Transfiguration?"

"What's it to you?"

"It's nothing to me, like I said, I just like to talk. Did nobody ever teach you the art of polite conversation, my duck?"

Duck. Who the fuck called anybody duck? He could see it as a term of endearment for a small child, but a grown man and an ex-convict at that?

"My mother tried. She failed."

"Maybe you should have listened to her, then."

"Nobody should listen to my mother. My brother does, and he's off trying to kill people." Sirius had not intended that to come out. He had a long-ingrained habit of refusing flatly to talk about his family. He'd been dumped for that once. Emotionally repressed, Matilda Brown from Ravenclaw had told him. He'd told her she had too little emotional repression, which James had said was harsh but Sirius stood by.

"I'm sorry," said Jo, handing him a floral teacup. Sirius could have sworn the teacup smiled. "I take that back, then. I didn't know."

"No, you didn't," snapped Sirius. That wasn't exactly fair. She couldn't be expected to know, and he was the one that had brought his mother up in the first place. The fact that his life was one big colossal disaster was not anybody else's problem. He arranged his face into what he hoped was a conciliatory expression, because it wasn't her fault exactly. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"If it helps, my duck, my mother disowned me when I got my Hogwarts letter. Unnatural, she called me. She wasn't the most trusting of people who were different to her. Very rude about the Irish, for example. And you should hear her views on black men. Witches just pushed her over the edge."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. If he had been in a better mood, on a different day, he might even have said he shouldn't have been rude to Jo. He wasn't. "My mother disowned me too."

"Ah, well, I think this calls for something stronger than tea, then," said Jo, hauling herself from her chair and rootling in the kitchen cupboards. She pulled out a dusty bottle of some kind of amber spirit, the label faded with age. "If we're going to be getting all maudlin now about our mothers. My tipple of choice is gin, by the way, but I'm all out. We'll have to take whatever this is, instead. I'm not quite sure, it's something my brother bought me several Christmases ago. He buys presents he would like, not what the recipient would prefer." She poured two generous measures into a cut crystal glass, looked at them for a moment, and added a splash more into each.

"Thank you," said Sirius.

"Now, care to tell me exactly why you were so shit at Apparating that you ended up on my fence? Either you should never have passed your test, you haven't, and we'll get the Ministry down on us, you were Apparating drunk which you don't seem to be, or something's upset you."

"I don't really want to talk about it."

"Have it your way. I tend to get it out of people in the end. Some people say I'm a nosy cow, like bloody Ivy Minchcombe who thinks she knows best about everything. She's the nosy cow, if you ask me, always got it stuck in other people's pies. I prefer to say I'm keen to help. Perhaps you could argue we both are. That would be one way of looking at it, wouldn't it?"

"Lots of people think they can get me to talk about it."

"Oh, a hard bezoar to crack. I see. I like a challenge. Hermione's not much of one, if I'm honest. She told me all about that boy of hers. Now, she says she doesn't know about any girlfriends of yours, so it can't be girl trouble. Either that, or you're very good at keeping secrets. She says she doesn't think you're chasing for the other team, either. Your brother?"

"I don't have girlfriends." He hadn't tried, after Azkaban. There was no point. He was a convicted criminal on the run. Girls didn't flock to that. "My brother is an arse. I don't think he always will be, but I don't know if he's worth trying to save."

Jo had the good sense not to crow that she had succeeded in getting him to talk. Instead, she topped up his glass, and finished up hers. It was only when she was adding some more alcohol to her own glass that she spoke again.

"Personally, and you didn't ask me, so I won't be offended if you ignore me, but I think it's worth trying to save everyone. Now, your brother wouldn't be one of these Death Eater fellows the paper is full of, would you? They're often out trying to kill people, and sadly for the wizarding world often succeeding."

Sirius nearly choked on his drink. He wasn't sure why it was such a surprise that Jo, who was a member of magical society just as much as he was, knew about Death Eaters. Logically, she'd have to have been hidden under a rock not just in a Muggle town to have missed the first wizarding war raging around her. The wizarding war. The second was years away. The Daily Prophet was full of speculation and reports of attacks, some of them entirely fictitious. The wizarding wireless network, too. The gossip in Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and wizarding taverns was constant. Of course she would know of the Death Eaters. Everybody lived in fear of them.

"He is." There was not a lot of point in denying it. In for a Knut, in for a Sickle. And rule-stickler Hermione had been talking to the woman.

"See, I'm a Muggleborn. Hermione might have said. Your brother would want to kill me. I'm going to assume you don't, even though you're related to one of them, either because I'm naive or I want to believe the best in people. Maybe that means you shouldn't take my advice. But even I reckon he's saveable, and he might try to kill me on sight."

"I don't want to kill you."

"Now there's a relief. If you did, I'd have to ask you to come back another day. Terribly bad manners to kill someone after you've partook of their ancient, unlabelled, Muggle booze, and you look like a boy with manners."

Sirius laughed. It started as a slight chuckle, but before long he was half collapsed onto the table in fits of laughter. And he wasn't completely sure why. Jo was watching him with an amused look on her round face.

"Well, it would be incredibly bad manners," he said, finally straightening up and controlling himself. What would his mother say about that emotional outburst? "And my aim is rubbish after a drink. I'll come back tomorrow, if that's convenient with you?"

"I had promised the WI I'd do the catering for their annual open meeting, so is the day after convenient?"

"Of course. Wouldn't want to inconvenience the WI. Whatever the WI is."

"If I'm honest, I've been wondering exactly what the WI is since I was persuaded to join it. Lots of women, all gas-bagging away, shit cake, and too much flower arranging. I only stay around because it's funny to watch them all argue. Did you know, no less than five of them are shagging someone else's husband? And there's some kind of row going on because apparently Sheila copied Maggie's entry into the North Yorkshire Knitters Guild Summer Fayre. There was deliberate sabotage, and everything."

"I think I'd like to see this."

"Oooh, yes. Come along to the open meeting with me. You can be my attractive new boyfriend. They'll all be so jealous that they'll forget about whether or not Maggie cut open the yoke of Sheila's fair-isle jumper. Although hopefully not so excited that Ann forgets to announce that Edna has been getting it on with her husband, because I've been looking forward to that. Ann's husband is a nasty bugger, don't know why anyone would want to get it on with him."

"Excellent. Owl me the details."

"Don't worry, I'm not even subjecting myself to that disaster waiting to happen. I'm going to come down with a nasty cold shortly before it's due to start."

"Fan of Divination?"

"Funnily enough, no. Hated the subject. Took it and then dropped it fairly soon afterwards. I don't have the patience for crystal balls, and the tea leaves just look like a soggy, nasty mess. This is just one of those things I know will happen."

"What do you think I should do about my brother?" If the question took Jo by surprise, she didn't show it. It almost took Sirius by surprise.

"Do you honestly think there is good in him, somewhere?"

"Yes, I do. Or there was. We were close as children." They always had been, at least until Sirius was eleven and Regulus ten. Sirius was beginning to wonder, then, if his parents had quite the right ideas. His sorting at Hogwarts cemented those thoughts. And Regulus had not really wanted to challenge them. But he was a kind, sweet child, and he had helped that Muggle that had lost their child, and he had never been as rude to Kreacher as Sirius always had been.

"Well then. If there's even a shred of good in someone, they deserve saving."

"That's very black-and-white."

"Oh, you get to my age and you start to understand things."

"Hermione doesn't think so. Hermione think we should leave him to it." He couldn't exactly explain why she thought that, so as he said it he felt slightly disloyal. He knew enough of Hermione to know that she would not have hesitated to see the good in Regulus without the time-travel. She'd defended Snape more than once, and Snape was a colossal git even with the spying for the Order.

"She's said nothing but positive things about you, you know. And she's clearly frustrated with you. Merlin knows why. Now, I'm not one to interfere. I let people argue it out, because if you get into someone else's fights you tend to get hexed by accident. Speak to her. If she won't listen, then think of a different way to persuade her. You've got to try. You two deserve happiness, I think."

"Okay." He didn't think that would work, but again, he couldn't exactly explain why.

"Now get out of my kitchen. I've got stuff to be doing, and by stuff I mean sleeping. I'm old. So get out."

"Thank you. I'm sorry to have bothered you with all of this."

"Nonsense. Who wouldn't want a gorgeous young man sat talking and drinking with them? Come round again. Often as you like. Ooh, that'll startle Muriel if she sees you leave. I'm looking forward to the gossip at the corner shop tomorrow already."

"Which house is Muriel?" asked Sirius, as Jo opened the front door for him.

"Brown windows, blue door," said Jo, indicating with one red-painted fingernail.

"I'll give her a cheery wave," said Sirius, raising his hand and giving the lady peering out from between the net curtains his best jaunty wave. Her hair was in curlers, and she was clad in a floral nightie, but apparently that did not stop Muriel rubbernecking at windows. "Thanks again."

"I mean it about coming round again."

Sirius let himself back into his own house after a clearly scandalised Muriel had disappeared. None of the Muggles in the area had taken the slightest bit of interest in them, and he wanted it to remain that way.

He made his way up the stairs, and then up the fold-down ladder into the loft. He was only halfway through clearing the space, and there was only just enough room for the mattress he'd lifted from the skip. Around him were the trappings of Hermione's grandparents' life. Photo albums in a cardboard box, pieces of baby clothing and a few toys that were the memories of Hermione's mother's childhood, birth certificates and pensions paperwork. A suit hung from a rafter, in a dated style. A wedding dress was folded neatly into a box, pressed with lavender between the layers.

He wondered what they had done with the stuff he had left behind in Grimmauld Place. Hopefully burnt half of it. Nobody needed all those Muggle posters he'd put up with Permanent Sticking Charms just to piss off his parents. He'd been faintly embarrassed by them even at the time of sticking them up, and there was a reason Harry had never been allowed into his bedroom. Especially after he'd caught Fred and George goggling at them.

Harry had inherited the house, or hopefully anyway. Dumbledore had warned him about that, that the house might not be able to be owed by a half-blood. Well, if Bella inherited it, hopefully the posters would shock her. And hopefully if Harry had it, Molly Weasley would have been interfering enough to move the posters.

Most of what he left behind was utter shit. Muggle or wizard. None of the stuff he'd left behind would be of any use to anyone. He hadn't made a massive amount of difference in this life, before or after his little trip through the Veil. Fucking shit, it all was.

He had to talk to Hermione again. Do it better. Avoid any emotional outbursts. She was as affected by the deaths as the rest of them were, he could see it in her eyes. He wasn't as stupid as to assume she was a heartless cow, trying to irritate him by refusing to engage. He trusted that she was being honest when she said that she hated it, or his rational, if slightly sloshed, side did. If he spoke to her when he was angry, that side wouldn't win and he'd fuck it up again.

It was just as much his fault as hers. He hadn't tried properly.

He had to. Because this whole thing was pointless. He'd live two lives, at this rate, let everyone die twice, and do absolutely nothing worthwhile.

And then they'd just have a second lot of stuff to dispose of, and nobody would mourn his stupid body, because he wouldn't have any friends left anyway. They'd be dead. Dead, dead, dead, the whole lot, and he hadn't had many real ones.

If she couldn't be convinced by November, he was going it alone.

 **a/n: I have nothing against the WI.**

 **Thanks to everyone who is reading/reviewing/faving/etc :) It isn't the fastest moving story ever, but it's the story I'm wanting to tell, and I hope you're enjoying the ride.**


	17. Chapter 17: Assistant Librarian

**Chapter Seventeen: Assistant Librarian**

 _Hermione_

 _October 1978, British Wizarding Library, London_

"Do you think we can do this?" asked Luna, as they arrived outside the shopping parade that housed the British Wizarding Library. If anything, the row of shops looked even more depressing than they had done the previous time Hermione had visited. Perhaps it was the weather. Grey, drizzly, late October days had that effect.

Luna was a shining bright spot in that, and had already gained several stares from people on the street. All of the others wore perfectly ordinary for the era Muggle clothing. Luna was clad in cerise robes, a chain of conjured and therefore larger than usual daisies around her neck, and her hair in a complicated plait threaded with ribbons. Hermione was quite impressed with how much Luna looked like herself still.

"Of course we can," said Hermione. "I've solved a fair bit of the theoretical gaps in how the device was made, and if I'm right in my guess I know what I need to do to fix it. I've just got a couple of last things I need to check…"

"And the library is the perfect place," said Luna.

It was nice to have somebody around who understood the importance of libraries.

"Do you think it's possible?" asked Hermione.

"Well, said Luna, rearranging her hair slightly, "I'm not an expert on this subject. If you say so, then it is likely to be possible. Probable, maybe not. Advisable? I couldn't say." She pushed open the door.

"Hello," said a very familiar voice as they walked into the library. "Can I help you?"

The speaker was a tall, brown-haired man with far too many lines on his young face and a name badge reading Remus, Assistant Librarian.

"I'd like to return these books, please," said Luna, pulling a pile from her brown leather satchel. Hermione wondered how many times Luna had visited the library over the time they'd been in the past. These weren't the books she'd got out the previous time they'd been, or the ones she'd come back with after returning some of Hermione's borrowed books.

"Certainly," said Remus, taking the pile and beginning the process of checking them back into the library. "I enjoyed this one," he said, indicating a novel. "We've got the sequel, if you're interested. It's not as good as the first one, but it's still an enjoyable read. Oh, you're interested in ritual magic? It's fascinating, isn't it? I read a bit on the topic at school, but there's much more on the subject here. I can point you in the right direction."

"That would be nice," said Luna. "I've got a lot of reading time at the moment. Anything you can recommend, that would be lovely, Mr… Remus."

"Just Remus," said Remus.

He looked well, so a full moon would not be close. Hermione knew he had never lasted more than six or seven months in a single job, so his time here working at the library was already running short. Given he had left Hogwarts less than six months ago, Remus himself did not yet know that. Just the knowledge of that made Hermione's heart break a little bit.

There were a lot fewer scars on his face than there would be when Hermione would meet him for the first time on the Hogwarts Express, and his rolled-up sleeves did not reveal the long, jagged one that usually decorated his lower-left arm. She had never stopped to consider before how many he must have gained in the horrible transformations when he thought all his friends were dead or imprisoned traitors. The wolf would have tore at himself, there would have been no Wolfsbane, and it was no surprise that he would have gained a significant number of scars. Twelve years, at least twelve lunar cycles a year, thirteen in some, that was a hundred and fifty full moons that he would have ripped at his own skin without his friends.

Fuck.

This Remus knew nothing of that. Whatever you could say of the actions of Sirius Black, Remus Lupin was an innocent party.

Remus, who lost all of his friends. Remus, who lost all of his jobs, Remus, who finally found happiness with a wife and a son, and then he lost them too and he died.

"Here, follow me. The ritual magic information is in two main places, there's a section of books over here, and then the older information on scrolls and loose leaf down in the basement. That's reference only. Is there anything in particular you're interested in on the subject? Many witches of your age come looking for the fertility spells?" said Remus. This Remus had no idea what was to befall him.

"Oh, no, I'm not really after those," said Luna. "I'm interested in it from a theoretical point of view, I suppose. I like to know things for the sake of knowing."

"Well," Remus smiled. He was clearly enjoying his work. "In that case, an ideal follow on from the book you had out previously is Rituals of Power: Theory and Practice…"

Hermione left them to it. She wandered off in the direction of the books she wanted to look at. At least one of them was getting to read for pleasure. She had a whole lot more time theory to get through.

She wanted to go home.

Hermione didn't want to do this anymore.

The Muggle's death had been it, for her. It was as much as she could cope with, and she didn't think she would be able to watch any more. And now she was watching Remus living a life that he no longer had in her time.

She was going home. She had to.

What she desperately wanted to do was jump straight in and start to try and fix as much of this as she could, but that was so, so dangerous. She could never do that. Their victory had always hung by the thinnest of threads. It was fragile. Hermione could sit down and pinpoint maybe a hundred things where, if they didn't happen, the war might have been won much later at a cost to even more lives. Or not at all. What if they had still been fighting, in June 2002?

No, as much as she wanted to, it was impossible.

So she was going to go home.

If she stayed here, her resolve would completely crumble.

She thought Sirius would assume her cowardly, so she hadn't bothered to talk to him. Besides, he had made it clear he didn't want her around. She'd avoided him every single time they had been in the house together, and she'd made it her business to stay out of the house as much as possible. He lurked upstairs in his loft most of the time, according to Ginny and Luna, occasionally appearing to get food.

The Muggle's face haunted her every night, and Sirius most likely assumed that she was heartless. She had flashbacks of the other dead, of Fred and Remus and all the others, even Snape. She was waking up in the night, sweating and terrified, thinking of all of those she had not been able to save. That was when she slept. Half of the time, she prowled the cliff tops like some kind of Victorian-era romantic heroine, and the other half, she frantically read as much as she could on time travel. She'd learnt a lot, including a few things that she thought had a chance of getting them home.

And a few things that made her wonder if Sirius could actually be right about how they could make things better. The strings of time were incredibly tangled, but there were ways to follow their trails. Or there were supposed to be.

Those bits weren't in the reputable books, though, and Hermione needed to check her sources. She always checked her sources. She was a meticulous researcher. She never left a stone unturned, her conclusions were always thought through, and she was very rarely wrong when she reached that conclusion. It was how she had got seven Outstanding NEWTs, and how she had been promoted to Junior Undersecretary just three years out of Hogwarts.

Luna would, of course, argue that she had too many fixed opinions and rarely changed her mind, and that she was insufficiently open to new ideas. But Luna, although she was clever, believed in anything she could get her hands on.

Hermione pulled a few tomes off the shelves, and trekked to the reading room on the other side of the library. The place was deceptively big. It should have been no larger than the corner shop on the end of their terrace of houses back in Saltburn, but if Hermione had to estimate she would have said the library was in fact about as big as a Quidditch pitch, although without the stands. She didn't want to try and estimate how many books there were, but it was certainly more than Hogwarts had.

Possibly, that was for good reason, as Hermione would not have given even a seventh-year student access to some of what she could check out from here. Admittedly, there was nothing to stop an of-age student coming and getting them for themselves, but Hermione supposed you had to at least try to keep your students from accessing books that describe how to perform Dark magic in exhaustive detail. And the vast majority of them, if her school year as anything to go by, wouldn't bother with any book they weren't forced to read.

It appeared that to make the time-device go forward, she would have to reverse the spell. That was obvious enough, perhaps, but what exactly that meant she had to do was unclear. Several wizards had clearly done it, back in the era before this was all outlawed, and the Ministry had allowed it officially. But their data had been destroyed. One witch claimed she had done it but the Ministry had promptly confiscated and destroyed her device when she had tried to write an article about it for a magical journal. Hermione had looked her up in the register of wizarding births, marriages and deaths, in the hope of tracking her down, but she'd died shortly after her travel in 1975.

In desperation, she briefly considered using the time-device in her black box, which she had no reason to suspect didn't work, to travel back, find the woman, and get her to tell Hermione what she had done, but that was likely to be a fools errand. The woman might not tell her, or be able to replicate it, and it could all be made up anyway. Being stuck here was bad enough, being stuck somewhere else could be worse.

So she stuck to the theoretical. Three hours of ploughing through books later, she had established only that she hated books where the font was so tiny that she needed a microscope, that Sirius was almost certainly in fact wrong about the repercussions, and that she probably needed several other books on charm-casting into complex objects before she could even attempt the spells she would need to on her little time-device.

She went off to look for them. The Charms section was overflowing its shelves, leather and fabric-bound books stacked in the alleys between the shelves and trolleys packed with yet more tomes blocking routes around the books. After a considerable amount of digging, and seeking the help of the female librarian, Hermione found what she was looking for. Charms into metal: an anthology of complex-object spell casting, and Magical Teapots: essays on animating your crockery and general object charms tucked under her arm, she went back to the reading area to await Luna.

Hermione was several chapters deep into a book when Luna reappeared, a stack of books sticking out of her satchel.

"Hermione? Are you ready to go?" said Luna. "I've got what I wanted. Have you made any progress?" Luna took a seat beside her, peering into the books that Hermione had spread around her.

"Yes. I think so." Hermione could spend all day here, and there were at least forty books she'd passed as she'd gone through the library that she desperately wanted to check out. But it wasn't necessarily going to be easy to get even these ones out; they had taken them out under the name of Sirius Black last time, and that wouldn't be possible this time.

"Luna?" asked Hermione. "How are you getting these out of the library?"

"Oh, I used my mother's name," she said. "My parents married in the summer of this year, and they took a two-year honeymoon abroad to look for certain magical creatures. Ones I'm sure you won't believe in." She said the last part with an airy voice, as if she expected Hermione to challenge her in exactly what the animals were. Hermione had given up on that. Luna would never believe they didn't exist.

"Is that safe?"

"It's as safe as being here, in terms of the timeline," said Luna. "Professor Lupin is nice as a young man, isn't he? It makes you wish he'd had a happier life, doesn't it?"

That caused another intense wave of sorrow in Hermione's heart. It wasn't fair. She had covered that already, however, and wanting to change someone's fate didn't of course mean that you could. Hermione made what she hoped was an appropriate noise, not exactly trusting herself to speak.

"It's a shame we can't do anything, isn't it?" said Luna, as she picked her way through a pile of books to the desk.

If Hermione hadn't known better, she'd have said Luna was trying to convince her to change the timeline. Luna had never said she didn't agree with Hermione's view on all of this, and for that, the factual view on all of this. There was only the one case of a man who'd claimed to have gone into the past with zero negative repercussions, and Hermione didn't believe that case. He wasn't being honest with himself, or he was lying deliberately.

"Can I get these out under your mother's name, too?"

"Of course," said Luna. She scooped them up into her arms and made her way towards the front desk, Hermione trailing behind.

This was manipulating the timeline, too. Pandora Lovegood wasn't in the country, and here she was checking out books, and if that was noticed Remus would be asked for a description of those checking out the books and then he'd give their description. Hermione found herself shaking slightly as Luna approached the desk. Everything they did was subtly flicking at the edges of the established timeline.

Everything they did had the chance of tipping over into worse than that.

"Can I take these ones, too, please Remus?"

"Of course. You're busy, aren't you?"

"Oh yes. I like reading. It's nice after work, isn't it?"

"To tell you the truth, I get home and I can't always bring myself to open a book. They say if you take a job doing something you love, then you can easily lose your love for it. What is it you do, Mrs Lovegood?"

"I work for the Ministry," Luna said, cheerfully packing the books into her bag as she spoke. "I'm a records keeper in the Minister's department."

"Ah, so you're unlikely to lose your love for anything there, then,' said Remus, grinning.

"I find it fascinating," said Luna. "Of course, I can't talk about any of it."

"Obviously," said Remus. "Well, that's your books. Anything else I can help you with today?"

"No, thank you very much," said Luna.

Hermione and Luna exited onto the busy Muggle street, and it was a few minutes until they were able to talk without fear of a Muggle overhearing what they had at say.

"Is that where your mother worked?" Hermione asked.

"It is," said Luna. "She always said it was a very interesting job. Access to lots of things. She gave it up when she had me. It's only part-time, and assistant level, so you don't see much, but lots of information even then. There's a lot of stuff we could find out, if we looked. There's all sorts of interesting things crossing the desk, it wouldn't take much for me to find out more."

Hermione had only listened to about half of Luna's answer, as they turned into the stairwell of the block of flats they were using to Apparate from. It was dangerous what Luna was doing, but then who spuriously checked library records of those that were out of the country anyway? The Death Eaters hadn't reached that stage yet.

"I never knew Remus worked for the library, not before we came here. I never bothered to ask what he did for work, actually. I know he didn't work during the second war, he didn't work at all between his year teaching at Hogwarts and his death I don't think. I should have asked more about him."

"We all have our regrets," said Luna. "I suppose the most important thing is not to repeat them. And to prevent more of them from happening, which is I suppose what I am struggling with. Not with this necessarily, but in general."

"Maybe."

"You don't think so?" Luna stood in the stairwell, leaning back on the wall. There was a puddle of what looked suspiciously like wee in the badly-lit corner, alongside half a dumped deckchair and a bicycle missing its saddle. Somebody had tried to brighten the place up with potted plants, a painting and a welcome mat outside their ground-floor flat, but the effect was ruined by the flat opposite sporting a boarded-up door.

"I do. It's just difficult, isn't it, when we're stuck here."

"Difficult doesn't always mean not right."

Luna spoke in riddles half the time at the minute. They Apparated back without much more conversation.

Hermione spent the next few days reading in various places along the beach, enjoying the last bits of the non-freezing weather. She couldn't exactly call it warm, or nice, weather, but with a Warming Charm and a jumper, it was nice enough to sit out and read in. It meant she didn't have to be in the house, at any rate, with Sirius lurking, Ginny out and Luna who-knew-where. Luna frequently disappeared, although Hermione assumed Luna was doing much the same as she was. Ginny had managed to owl-order herself a broom, and was off somewhere on the Yorkshire moors practicing. She was in a fit of positivity about getting home, after Hermione had updated her on the progress with the charms, and had stated that she wanted to keep her eye in.

They had another appointment in a few days, something else to watch and wait and look at to check it was going as it should. Hermione needed to do this, the more they interacted with people and institutions within the past the more they risked ruining, but she didn't want to. Sirius had written a timeline, and she knew what was coming next. It was more death, and Hermione did not want to look.

The anxiety was increasing, the further they got into 1978. And this was a relatively safe year. One death of someone she'd heard to prior to coming back, and that was it. 1979 had more. Harry and Ron would born in 1980, and she just had to hope that she was well gone before October 1981.

Seeing Remus had shaken her. She'd seen him in Devon, of course, but that was a glimpse of him fighting. He was an anonymous warrior, as much as anything else. He was just another part of this horrible war. To see him to talk to, interacting, in a normal wizarding environment, was something else. It was by far the most normal she had ever seen him, other than his teaching year. He seemed content. Happy. Enjoying his life in a way she had never seen it before.

Could she really condemn him to lose all that?

If she didn't, if she improved Remus' life, what would that do to hers and Harry's and Ron's? Ginny's? Luna's?

Harry could grow up with a family, but if he did he wouldn't be the same. What if he didn't want to be her friend any more? She wouldn't have had friends, without him. And Ron. It was selfish to think like this. Dumbledore never would have. He'd have condemned her to have had no friends if it would have been for the good of the whole community. But then if the Potters weren't attacked and he didn't die, Voldemort would keep coming after Harry. They'd have to kill Voldemort, and she didn't know where two of the Horcruxes were. The ring and the locket. She didn't even know when they were made. There were an indeterminate number of Horcruxes out there right now. At least one, as he'd made that at school, and as many as five, if he'd made all of the ones except Harry and the snake.

What if they went for Neville?

Oh god, she couldn't cope with it if her actions killed Neville.

Was it hypocritical to care more about those she had interacted with than those she hadn't? She didn't want the members of the first Order to die, of course she didn't, but she was definitely guilty of putting more weight on saving her friends.

Dumbledore hadn't thought like that.

Dumbledore wasn't the best example. He would have sacrificed whoever he needed to in order to secure the victory.

Essentially that was what she was doing, though. She was sacrificing that Muggle, and James and Lily, and everyone else, because she knew that would get them a victory in twenty years.

Hermione decided she was not cut out to be a mastermind, whether of the evil persuasion or of the supposed light side.

She slammed her book shut, and shoved it back into her backpack. The night was drawing in, and it was getting colder now. She'd either have to re-cast her Warming Charm, or go in soon. And with the light fading, going in seemed the best option. She re-tied her scarf, and prepared for the trudge back up to the house.

No matter the guilt, she had to stick to the plan. It was for the best.

And yet she couldn't shake those niggling doubts.

She tried to push them to the back of her mind as she walked along the street back towards their house. She had been going around in circles and repeating the same reasonings and thoughts, and she was beginning to bore herself. She needed to get a clear mind. Ginny had recommended running. Hermione didn't much fancy that.

It was raining slightly, making the pavement slick and shiny with the water. Hermione would need to buy a coat with a hood. She'd been putting it off, hoping they wouldn't be here this long. Maybe a warm coat, it was a hassle to have to use magic constantly in a Muggle area.

Up ahead, Hermione saw the flicker of movement near to her house. A tall figure in a dark cloak was wandering up and down the pavement opposite, casting frequent glances at the house. Hermione stopped. It was too tall to be Ginny or Luna, and too slim to be Sirius. Carefully, she drew her wand and held it behind her back. Her eyes might be deceiving her. And if they weren't, she did not want to draw attention to herself.

The figure looked at the house one last time, and turned to walk away down the street.

She gave it a good few minutes before she carried on walking and let herself into the house with shaking hands. In all likelihood, it wasn't a Death Eater. They had been wearing Muggle trousers under the cloak, it was just a silly Muggle with bad fashion sense.

Nobody knew they were there, nobody was out to get them. Nobody was coming after them. They were safe here.

Weren't they?

She shook her head. It could have been a stress induced imagining, after all. She needed to get some sleep. Too much reading. It had happened before.

They were safe in Saltburn.


	18. Chapter 18: Benji

**a/n: I've taken some liberties with the timeline here. I looked up Benji Fenwick's date of death and it seems that was in 1981. As I didn't want to invent an OC just to immediately kill them off in the same scene, I've changed Benji's death around a bit. Sorry, Benji, for taking a good couple of years off your life.**

 **Content warning for a minor character death.**

 **Thanks to Rachael for her usual super-speed beta-ing and for correcting my grammatical errors even when swearing.**

 _Sirius_  
 _November 1978, Glasgow_

November rushed into North Yorkshire in a gust of wind and rain, making Sirius' loft colder than it had a right to be. Modern Muggles apparently had something called insi-layshun, but this place didn't. With a bit of magic, it was fine, and he wasn't going to take Ginny up on her offer of coming back downstairs.

"It's freezing, Sirius. You'll be an icicle. We'll come back up here one day and find a little frozen Sirius in a block of ice, looking all pathetic with his packet of crisps frozen to his hand."

"I'll be fine. Merlin, stop fucking fussing. You're like your…"

"I can see where you're going with this, Sirius Orion Black, and don't you fucking dare."

He set the crisp packet on fire with his wand.

"Don't use my middle name."

"That's what they're for. For using when someone's being a great big floppy dick. Fucking hell, Sirius, put that out!"

It turned out Muggle crisp packets do not enjoy being set alight.

After that, Sirius' birthday at the beginning of November came and went, with no fanfare. He'd made his housemates promise not to mark the day.

By the time he got up, just after eight in the morning, he found Hermione sitting at the kitchen table with her papers. Usually, the girl was showered and dressed before Sirius or the others had got up. Today, she was at the table in pyjamas and a dressing gown, her hair tangled up on the top of her head and slightly greasy.

"Morning," he said, bending down to look for cereal. "Ouch."

"Are you okay?" she asked, raising her eyes from her parchment. She was reading one of the ones she'd brought from the Ministry in 2002, for what was perhaps the hundredth time.

"Yeah. Fine. Just getting old. Thirty-seven, you know. Ancient."

"Sirius, I…"

"Forget it, Hermione. Today is not the day to lecture me."

She seemed to know better than to argue with him. Birthdays put him in a foul mood, and it was showing. She walked out to get a shower, and he ate eggs angrily as there was no fucking cereal and snapped at Ginny and Luna when they offered him toast.

And then he went back to his loft and did the very unmanly and very un-Black thing of crying into his pillow, because it hadn't been their fault and he would have quite liked toast.

Still, if Sirius had found his birthday hard going, the next week was worse. The next interaction between Death Eaters and member of the Order of the Phoenix they had scheduled to attend was the one that had lead to Benji Fenwick's death.

Sirius had not joined in the planning with any enthusiasm. Ginny had forced him to be involved at all, as they had no way of attending without his information. Sirius was well aware he had now spent the best part of three days stomping round the house, snapping at people and being generally unpleasant to be around, and yet he couldn't find it within himself to try to behave better. Besides, there was little point.

They planned to arrive in the Glasgow neighbourhood half an hour before Sirius had arrived the previous time he had been on this job. Hermione had been adamant of the importance of this. They had a schedule, places to stand where they would be able to see things and to act if necessary and far enough away that they would not accidentally become entangled. All three witches had a parchment with the order things had played out, so they could cross-reference actions.

It was planned out to within a second, and Sirius had done none of it.

"Ready?" asked Luna, once they'd checked and double checked the plan and were standing in the alleyway behind the house. Everyone nodded.

They reappeared behind a rundown block of flats in an estate on the edges of Glasgow. Muggle Glasgow. There was a fairly large wizarding community in the Scottish capital, but Sirius was certain this was not it. This place stank of neglect. Blocks of flats surrounded them, arranged in a square around a courtyard. Some attempt at gardening had been made in the middle of it, but that had clearly been abandoned. Whether before or after half of it had been smashed up was unclear. A large group of teenaged Muggles were drinking in the light from the three streetlamps that remained working, at the other end of the small courtyard sat an abandoned van with the engine ripped out. None of the Muggles seemed to care that four people had appeared from nowhere, if indeed they had noticed at all.

"Ginny, Luna, are you alright to take the south side?" asked Hermione, the self-appointed leader. "That leaves me and you to take this side, Sirius."

"Can't wait," said Sirius, prodding the concrete floor with his foot. "Looking forward to it. Ecstatic."

Luna and Ginny traipsed off to the other side of the block of flats. Ginny looked back at Hermione and Sirius as they went, with a look on her face of 'are you sure this is a good idea?' and a raised eyebrow. Sirius had no idea which of them it was aimed at, and he didn't much care.

Hermione could pair up with whoever the hell she liked. See if he cared.

She had actually suggested Sirius stay at home, and just the three girls go, given his attitude to the whole thing. Sirius had flatly refused. If he was going to condone allowing Benji to die, he was damn well going to be there to watch it. He owed his old friend that.

Despite his good behaviour, despite everything, Hermione still didn't trust him. He might have argued vehemently that this was a bad course of action, but he'd agreed to it, hadn't he? He'd argued intently against it, again, and she still hadn't budged. For a moment, yesterday, he thought he had seen a wobble in her eyes when she asserted her position. Just a hint that she might be wavering. He clearly hadn't, not judging by where he now was and what he was doing.

He'd made a promise he would leave after this, if she didn't change her mind. Sirius still intended to do just that. Not in the heat of the moment though. That never helped anyone. He would try and persuade her again, and afterwards if she was still being unhelpful and obstinate he would calmly talk to all of them and he would take his leave.

They hid themselves in a location just north of where the younger version of Sirius and his friends would appear in about twenty minutes, with a good view. They had taken pains to blend in as Muggles, in case they were spotted, and Hermione was now working on measures to ensure they weren't. Sirius had hauled himself up to sit on a bin, and was watching her cast the spells. His legs, clad in motorbike boots, kicked the bin in a steady rhythm.

"Are you going to help?" she asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I've got to sit here and watch Benji die all over again. I want to save him and I fucking can't, Hermione."

"I don't want him to die either. Don't make me out to be some kind of heartless cow."

"I don't know what cows have to do with this, and I don't care."

"Muggle thing."

How the fuck could she make jokes at this moment?

"The fact of the matter is, you just don't care as much as I do. You didn't ever know Benji. You're condemning him to death just as much as the Death Eater that casts the spell, because we could do something. And so am I. Before, we all went home and got horrifically pissed and said we felt dreadful, and we comforted each other and said 'don't worry mate, it wasn't your fault' and 'you couldn't have done more' and we could go to sleep at night knowing that really, it wasn't and that we had. Well tonight I can't. Tonight I know it will be my fault that Leticia Fenwick gets a knock on the door from Dumbledore and Moody telling her that Benji's exploded into tiny little bits and that they're really fucking sorry. And they are. Because it isn't their fault. It's the Death Eater's, and it's mine, and it's yours and Ginny's and Luna's."

At the start, when he had begun talking, Sirius had been shouting. Towards the end, he became aware that he was no longer. His voice had developed a whine. He slid down off the bin, and ended on the concrete with his face in his hands and his eyes firmly focused at the floor.

He couldn't look at her face.

"Sirius, I'm sorry."

"If you were truly sorry, we'd save him."

"We agreed we wouldn't. We can't. What if we kill someone else on this raid instead?"

"Then we'll just make sure it's Peter."

"Sirius."

"Yeah, I don't care. I'll say what I like, and you can say what you like. Fuck off, Hermione. I don't care what you think."

She didn't even bother to respond, instead turning to continue her spellwork. She was sad, he could see it, but that could go fly if she wasn't going to fucking do anything.

This was meant to have been an easy job. The four Marauders and Benji had been sent to gather evidence. There had been suspicious activity in this area, and at least one known Muggleborn lived in the flats, a small girl named Hazel Young. She wouldn't know of the magical world yet, and she wouldn't know how much sections of it hated her very existence.

They had never found out what the suspicious activity was. The girl had been moved on the day after the attack, and had never known what was happening outside of her flat door. The suspicious activity had ceased. The Death Eaters were probably trying to kill her, and Sirius was pleased that at least one person had been saved.

That hadn't been him, though. That had been Lily impersonating some Muggle Ministry type, a housing officer or whatever it was she'd called it.

"I can see Remus," said Hermione. She scribbled a note on her parchment, which would replicate itself onto the ones the others were holding. Clever spellwork, even Sirius had to admit.

He kept silent.

He held that silence while Remus checked the area. He held it while the other three Marauders and Benji arrived, slowly, with a series of cracks that hung in the still night air.

The sounds of their voices floated over to him. Peter and James were farting around, making some complicated joke, and Benji and the younger Sirius laughing. Only Remus had a serious face on, and when Sirius produced a hip flask and passed it around, Remus was the only wizard to decline a nip.

Remus always had understood the potential consequences better than the rest of them. Remus had known what they stood to lose.

"If this is what it's like with you lot, I'll come out with you more often," said Benji.

"Now we like you, but we aren't taking admissions to the Marauders," said the younger Sirius. How the older Sirius wished he could swap places with that boy.

"They won't even let Lily join," said James.

"Shhh!" hissed Remus. "Someone might be coming!"

"Hark the Prefect," said Peter, and stood to attention. Benji laughed.

"I was a Prefect," he said. "Nothing wrong with it."

"He's definitely not in," said Sirius. "Only got the room for the one irritating little Prefecty rule-hugger. And the Head Boy, but I still think that was a mistake and that Dumbledore just couldn't bring himself to disappoint Prongs."

"Shut it!"

Remus was a couple of yards away from the rest of the group now, wand raised. James dashed to join him, taking a position at his side.

"Shit, guys, I can see something!"

"Cloak, James, go see what it is," Remus ordered. "Pete, rat it?"

James and Peter disappeared, and from their position the older Sirius could see the shadow of a rat running up the street. The younger Sirius was paying attention now, and had stopped twiddling his wand. He stood back-to-back with Benji, prepared for attack the way Moody had taught them. Remus crouched on the ground a few metres off from them, still watching the way James and Peter had gone.

"Let's go inside the flats and up a floor," said Sirius.

"That's not the plan," Hermione replied. She had her wand out, eyes focused on the Order members in the street, her slightly fluffy hair plaited back from her face.

"It makes us less likely to be detected, in case I've made a mistake," he said. "We can still do something if we need to." And it made it less likely he would run out and throw himself in front of Benji.

From that point, it was as if Sirius was watching the events on the ground in slow motion. The Death Eaters appeared, four of them in their black cloaks and masks, and Peter and James dashed up behind them. That gave the Order the advantage for a moment. Sirius and Remus had got two of them down and under containment while James, Peter and Benji tackled the other two. Death Eater reinforcements arrived. Peter was injured. Remus was backed into a corner by the now-released Death Eaters they'd had captured, casting every defensive spell he could think of and struggling as theirs hit the mark several times. James was stunned on the floor. Benji ran forward to revive him, and then…

Sirius couldn't watch. He ran. He was vaguely aware of Hermione following him, her feet beating on the concrete as she ran, but all that filled his brain was the urge for nothing and for forgetfulness.

He found himself on the top floor of the block of flats, hanging over the balcony. His elbow was in a plant pot.

This was full of shit.

The man down there, the man exploded into pieces by the force of a curse, that man had been a real, living and breathing person. He had a life. A family. And now that was gone and they would never find a bit of his body larger than an inch wide.

Sirius had been at the funeral. Benji's widow, Leticia, had screamed and cried. She'd thrown herself on the floor in front of the grave and it had taken both of her sisters and Remus to pull her back before she had thrown herself into it. She was seven months pregnant.

Remus and Sirius had walked back to the pub together, where the wake was to be held, and the usually calm and composed Remus had punched a wall so hard that his hand had bled. James had disappeared, and was found by Lily and Peter crying in the corner of the graveyard, hunched up into a tiny ball of Prongs. Peter had screamed at him to man up, and then fallen down in a heap of his own and been sick. Lily had dragged them both home and put them to bed. She'd come back to the wake, stone faced, and then burst into tears over a pint of mead.

It was the first war death they'd experienced.

Sirius himself had not felt anything for Benji until a week later. He'd gone to Headquarters for the first time since Benji's death, and found the bottle of Muggle port which had been Benji's favoured drink. That had been the impetus for feeling something. He'd crashed the the floor, right there in the little pantry off the kitchen, and sobbed into wall. He'd dragged himself out long enough to fire-call, Remus, and the two of them had downed the entire bottle and then exploded it in the garden. The bottle had gone the same way Benji had.

It hadn't helped.

Nothing had fucking helped.

He'd sat on the back step with Remus afterwards, half sloshed on port and half ruined on grief.

 _"Remus, I can't do this," Sirius had said. "I can't watch people die." Remus had put an arm around his back and pulled Sirius into his shoulder, with the crush of a strong and drunken man._

 _"You can. You can and you will, Pads, because the other choice is fuckin' giving in isn't it. They killed Benji to scare us and to make us stop resisting them. I'm scared shitless, Pads, but I'm not giving in. I'm going to explode Voldemort like he did Benji. Boom." He had waved his free arm into the air expressively._

 _"You're eloquent when you're drunk, you know that? Could be a proper little pureblood, you."_

 _"Fuck off. Don't you go insulting me that way."_

 _"Bastard."_

 _"My parents were married."_

 _"Yeah, and mine were cousins. Irrelevant."_

 _"Nah. It figures." Silence. That would usually have got a laugh and a retort. Not that night._

 _"I'm scared, Moony. I'm scared I'm going to die in this and it won't mean anything and it won't all stop. That we'll all die and Voldemort will still be in power and we'll all have died for nothing."_

 _"We won't. Well, we might die, but it will never be for nothing. If I die, I'm going to take as many Death Eaters down with me as I can. I mean, shit I'm scared too, but you've got to try, haven't you?"_

 _"That's the spirit, lads," said Moody, appearing behind them. "If you're not too plastered, I'm going to need you to clear up all that exploded glass over there. Esther says you've been cursing bottles into oblivion."_

 _Remus had stood up, impressively steady, and collected the glass together with his wand. Sirius had fallen over and vomited on Moody's foot._

They'd all got over it, of course. More people had died. By the end of the war, even before Halloween '81, more people had died than Sirius had counted. Benji had just been the start of it.

Sirius held their names in his heart, and when each of them had died Sirius had vowed never to forget them. The Marauders used to chant them when a new one died, drink a bottle, and explode it. It made them feel as though they had marked it, in a ridiculous hedonistic way that combined their status as men in their teens and early twenties with their role as soldiers in the darkest of wizarding wars. You had to hang onto some of the idiocy. You had to hang onto at least a part of who you had been before, for as long as you could remember who that had been.

Sirius didn't know if he could sit through all of this again.

It was a massive fucking cauldron of Hippogriff shit, the biggest bastarding Hippogriff shit you'd ever seen, and it was overflowing all over the sides.

He had the urge to blast something again now. He understood, as he had done in the last war, why some wizards were drawn to destruction. When you feel like shit and you can't control your life, then it makes you feel powerful to destroy something. You have control.

Sirius did his best not to succumb to the urges.

Hermione was watching him. While he stood leaning over the balcony, watching for the Aurors and the Order members he knew would soon arrive, she sat by the stairs. Her knees were up to her chest, and she was turning her wand over in her hands.

The first cracks of Apparition signalled the arrival of the law enforcement and the Order back-up. The Order had arrived first, but too slow to help. Sirius didn't need to look to know what was happening. Him and James were standing with their wands trained on the captured Death Eaters,James had their wands in his other hand. Remus was doing his best to patch up Peter. Benji was splattered across the pavement.

Moody and Sturgis Podmore were the first on the scene. Moody, in a double role that the Ministry hated but could do little about, was able to formally take the Death Eaters under arrest. Peter was back on his feet, looking shaky, and Remus had taken to patrolling the area. The Death Eaters had been known to send reinforcements of their own.

The Aurors proper began to arrive, and the sounds of an argument between Moody and the Head of the Auror Department floated up to where Sirius was standing.

"I am your superior, and if I tell you to stop gallivanting about with these extrajudicial idiots then you will stop it, Auror Moody!"

"Yeah, and with what are you going to enforce that? There's no proof I was here with anybody."

"These lads are rumoured members of the Order of the Phoenix, and you did not get the summons from the Ministry, because you weren't there! I will fire you, Moody!"

"No you won't, because Crouch will reinstate me, and if he doesn't the Minister will. Firing the Auror with the highest capture rate of any of you sorry lot will not do good things for the Ministry's press in times like these, and you know how Crouch and the Minister like the good press."

Sirius tuned it out. He'd heard it the first time. He'd heard enough.

He stepped back from the balcony and walked over to Hermione, slinking down to sit beside her on the concrete floor.

"I'm sorry, Sirius."

"No you're not. Save your words."

"I don't mean to…"

"Yeah you do. We thought we were all invincible, you know that? We were eighteen, well, me down there is nineteen now, and we were unstoppable. The war would be over, we thought, if only they'd let us join. And we joined, and we captured a couple of the bad guys, and we got pissed to celebrate and we all sat in the living room of the place we shared and sang old Quidditch songs until we passed out. It was like we were kings.

"And then the war didn't stop. We saw people injured. Benji died. Things got shittier. People we were close to died. Suddenly we didn't feel invincible. We felt like thin little parchment versions of ourselves, who in the smallest of storms would be ripped apart.

"You know it, Hermione. You've been through war. You've stood in a battle and realised you have no fucking clue how you're going to survive it and you've screamed because you just want to go home. Prongs screamed for his mother after a battle once. We were all round our place, 'cept him and Peter had moved out by then, and he just lay on the sofa and cried and shouted that he wanted his mum.

"His mum was dead, so we couldn't even Floo her."

Sirius stopped talking, running out of things to say that seemed relevant. It both was and wasn't, all of that. It seemed to do a crappy job of explaining how that time in his life had felt, because really no words he could find had ever done it justice.

He wanted to show her how it felt, which was pointless, as she knew. she had been through war. Which made her position even less understandable.

But that was that. He'd tried earlier to convince her. He wouldn't waste his breath on it again.

He stood up.

"Let's go home. I don't need to watch the Obliviators come."

Sirius did not re-enter the house on arrival. Hermione did not even pass comment. Well, if there was one good thing to come out of tonight.

Without really knowing where he was going, he went down to the beach. The others were in the house, and well, he had no desire to be with them. He was going to have to skip out on them, before long. Hermione didn't seem to learn. For whatever her current protestations were about understanding all of this, she didn't get it. She had seen people die. Had she seen as many as him?

The time for sitting back and beating himself up about all of this was over. The time had come to do something. He'd never shied away from acting before.

Why did he want to stick with the girls, if they were unwilling to do anything to help his friends?

Hermione claimed she wanted to protect Harry. Giving him his parents back would be the best way of doing that.

"Sirius, I hope you don't mind me coming down here, but I wanted to check if you were okay."

He hadn't noticed Ginny appearing behind him. Fucking good thing she wasn't a Death Eater or something, wasn't it? Constant Vigilance. He'd get himself killed if he wasn't careful, and deliberately doing things that might get you killed was more Remus' remit.

"I should think that is fucking obvious," he said, refusing to look at her. He'd be gone soon enough. He didn't even need to go back to the house. He could summon his belongings from here, if a few Muggles didn't mind nearly being hit by them. It'd be a breach of the Statute of Secrecy, but fuck the Ministry. He'd almost welcome a meeting with someone from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He could give them a swift kick up the arse about trying to catch themselves the odd Death Eater.

Fucking useless idiots, the lot of them, Moody excepted. And Frank Longbottom. He was decent.

"I'm sorry about Benji. For what it's worth, I think you're right. We should be doing something."

"Really?"

"Well, I've thought it for a while," said Ginny, sitting down. She scrunched her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. Sirius flopped down beside her, legs crossed. The sand was damp and freezing cold, but he didn't much care. "I wanted to be sure, though. I read a load of Hermione's stuff. I'm worried about what might happen to Harry, or my family, but we'd be making Harry's life better, wouldn't we? And, I dunno, something Luna said the other day, she agrees, and she doesn't think Hermione's far off either."

"She's not."

"You don't want to believe in the best of her."

"She won't believe in me."

"If you ask me, you're both as bad as each other. It's like listening to my brothers argue, except I can't whack you."

"Why not?"

"The level of violence that's acceptable towards a sibling isn't generally acceptable towards a friend."

"Am I a friend?"

"Are you dense? Of course you're my friend. I might even like you, you know, you're a decent bloke who's just trying to do the right thing. Like the rest of us."

"Did you know, nobody ever says that about me. Hermione told me I was a good person once, as in not evil, and Remus used to frequently tell me that I was useful to the Order, and that I was still worth something. But nobody says they like me."

"Perhaps they just don't know that you need to hear it," said Ginny. "I like you, Sirius. And so do a lot of other people."

"Hermione doesn't." He was being petulant again, and he knew it.

"I dunno, I think that she does. But she finds you frustrating, because you won't listen to her. And I get that. You aren't listening. And neither is she. She doesn't like it when people don't think she's right. And neither do you. And, besides, even if she doesn't, do you need everyone to like you? Sometimes, the way to know you're doing the right thing, even when it is difficult, is that some people don't always like you."

"When it's someone on your own side, though…"

"You hate Snape. He's on our side. Or was, he isn't yet, I suppose."

"Snape's a dickhead of colossal proportions."

"Yeah, he is. And Hermione's not, so try and be nice, yeah? We can convince her together, but it does help to be polite."

"Really? You'd do that for me?"

"I would, but don't flatter yourself that it's entirely for you. Arrogant twat. It's for Harry and my brothers and my parents and everyone else, too."

"I thought it was too much to hope for that someone could be nice to me for an entire conversation." He stretched out his legs, and offered Ginny the smallest of smiles, in the hope that she could tell that wasn't as much of an attack as it may have sounded.

"I don't want to puff you up more than I need to, mate."

They lapsed into silence, both of them sitting on the sand. His arse was getting wet, the sand was damp.

"Ginny, can you come to the shop with me? I've got an idea." To her credit, she didn't question him, and followed him up the cliffs.

The other two were sat in the living room when they came back, draped across chairs and sofas watching some Muggle crap on the television. Luna had become somewhat obsessed with it. Younger Sirius would have been too, but this Sirius was less than interested.

He plonked a bottle of port down on the coffee table, and swiped four glasses from the kitchen. Putting them down on the floral-painted tiles of the coffee table, Sirius poured a generous measure of the port into each glass.

"Drink," he said. "It was Benji's favourite drink. To Benji."

"Benji," said the three witches, holding their glasses aloft for the moment before drinking the contents.

"Eurgh," said Ginny. "Why'd he like that?"

"I think it's quite pleasant," said Luna, pouring herself a second measure. Sirius held out his glass for more.

Just as he and Remus had done the time before, Sirius, Hermione, Luna and Ginny drank the bottle of port. After a few glasses, even Ginny found the taste enjoyable. When the port was gone, Sirius picked up the empty green glass bottle and carried it outside, motioning for the others to follow him.

He placed the bottle in the middle of the grass lawn, and stepped back towards the others. Ginny sat on the steps, her cloak wrapped around her against the November air and her long ginger hair loose on her shoulders. Luna stood against the wall beside her. Hermione started forwards to join Sirius.

"Wait," she said, and pointed her wand to the sky. "We don't want any Muggles to call the police."

"Indeed." Sirius pointed his wand at the bottle and blew it to the sky.

There was a blast of light and sound, and shards of glass flew into the air to scatter around Sirius. Beside him, he felt a rush of air, and the glass stayed well away from the people on the ground. Instead, it crashed itself into the grass, and the tree, and the fences and the little shed with the Muggle lawn-cutter and hit the walls of the house.

Sirius himself crashed down onto his knees.

He cut a pathetic figure. Hair past his chin, unbrushed, jeans with a rip through them, boots with undone laces covered in mud. A jacket that had seen so many better days, and his eyes staring blankly out over the shower of pieces of glass and the bottle it had used to be.

He held himself together until the last shard of glass had fallen to the floor, and then he let himself go. If he had stopped to think of it he may have found his reaction embarrassing. He didn't. He let great big sobs fall from his mouth and huge fat tears from his eyes, and he lay on the ground with his head in the muddy grass and a jagged piece of glass an inch from his face.

Benji had died twice, and the second time Sirius had not even tried to save him.

Sirius was a terrible, terrible person.

The worst.

He felt small, soft hands on his arms, pulling him into an upright position. Blonde hair tickled his face. Sirius looked up. Luna was wrapping her arms around him, cradling him like a giant baby and like he was not at all an awful example of a wizard, and stroking his back.

"It's horrible," she said. "And I can't promise it will ever feel better. But I'm here. We're all here, Sirius, and we all care."

They weren't the most conventional words of comfort, but they did help. They were able to at least stop the wailing noise that Sirius had been highly surprised to realise he was making.

"Yeah, we're here," said Ginny.

"We are." Hermione wrapped her arms around him too, and Ginny followed, and Sirius was swallowed up into a swaddle of warm bodies and overly tickly girl hair.

They sat there until the sun rose, and somehow by then Sirius felt less like the world was falling apart.


	19. Chapter 19: The Fire

**Chapter Nineteen: The Fire**

 **a/n: content warning for character death.**

 _Hermione_

 _November 1978, Saltburn_

Sirius had seemed fine, the first day after Benji Fenwick's death, and Hermione thought he had worked through his emotions. He'd cried, packed his things up into a series of bags and left them by the front door, and acted as if he was intending to leave. Then, he had burst into tears and retreated back up the stairs to his loft, dragging all the bags of stuff with him. Luna had gone up after him, and said he was better left alone.

Two days later he'd re-emerged, chipper as anything, and made himself a large fried breakfast. He'd offered round hard-boiled eggs, sausages, bacon and fried tomatoes with a cheery smile, and offered to make porridge for Luna. He'd then disappeared off with Ginny for a game of Quidditch.

Hermione thought that, surprising as it may be, he was okay about it. He certainly was showing all of the signs of a man who was feeling fairly emotionally stable.

This proved to be about as far from the truth as it was possible to be.

She didn't think she had said anything that she shouldn't have. She'd made a comment about Harry, about missing him.

Sirius' shouting had gone on for about twenty minutes, with no way for Hermione to get a word in edgeways and then he had stormed out. The front door slammed behind him with a bang and she was left standing in the kitchen, Sirius' half-eaten sandwich on the table beside her. He'd put lettuce in with the bacon and tomato, but picked most of it back out again as he ate.

Then again, Hermione wasn't okay about it all, and it wasn't her friend that was newly dead for the second time. It was ordinary that he would be more affected. Sirius had every right to behave like this. Harry had smashed up Dumbledore's office when he thought Sirius was dead, Hermione remembered, and really, this was mild in comparison. Voldemort killed when things didn't go his way. Not that she was comparing Sirius to Voldemort, particularly. Her point was that really, he was being fairly restrained, even compared to his own previous actions.

But it was still irritating that he just wouldn't talk about it. He went from fine to most likely clinically depressed through angry and back to morose. He'd shout in the angry stage, but otherwise he was like a bloody clam. If he just talked about things! He'd feel better, and it would make the rest of them feel less like they were walking on some particularly violent dragon eggs. Something Hagrid would want to cuddle.

She stomped around the house for a while longer, but it didn't help. It mainly led to a long and complicated discussion with Luna about time travel, during which Hermione felt Luna was almost intentionally being unhelpful, and then some eye-rolling from Ginny in the garden. Ginny at least agreed that Sirius should try talking about his problems, but suggested Hermione should too.

Hermione had. It had got her nowhere. She was just shouting into a bloody vacuum. Even getting Harry to talk was less frustrating than this.

Predictably, Sirius was nowhere to be found.

With a lack of any useful conversation in her own house, and a brain not in the right state to focus on theoretical problems, Hermione wandered next door to visit Jo. The older woman had a curtain slung around her shoulders and knotted together with string around her neck when she opened the door, with a crown made from construction paper and dotted with foil stickers perched on top of her greying hair.

"Hermione! How nice to see you! I'd apologise for the get-up, but when you get to my age you don't much care what people see you in any more. I've got my grandchildren here for the weekend. We're being kings and queens and princesses."

"Oh, is it a bad time?"

"Of course not, duck. It's about time they got some fresh air. I'll chuck them out in the garden and we can have a nice catch-up." As Jo hurried from the room to herd her grandchildren outside, she deposited the flocked curtain cloak on a nearby chair. She kept the crown. Hermione thought it suited her.

"So," said Jo, when the tea had been brewed and yet another homemade cake sourced from a cupboard. The oldest grandchild, a boy, had reappeared at the cake's arrival, as if he had some kind of supersonic hearing. "What brings you round here? My sparkling wit, or my cake?"

"Everyone in my house is an idiot," said Hermione. She had been visiting Jo regularly since her first tea visit here, every Wednesday afternoon at the very least. They'd become friends. It was a friendship built on half-truths from Hermione, but that was a necessity. Otherwise, it was built on a mutual love of complaining about the various people they had to deal with in their lives. "And a fair few people outside of it are too. I just want to go home."

"Well, I should hope you don't mean me, although I would assume you don't given this is the door you've shown up at to air your sorrows. If you want to go home, go, then. You don't have to do anything for anyone else, not if you don't want to."

"I can't exactly get home, right now. And, tell that to Sirius."

"Is this about that thing with his brother?"

"How do you know about Sirius' brother?"

"He told me. Had him round here once after he crashed into my fence, and then he drank half my fun, that boy. Also, I read newspapers, and I'm old, and I remember when he was disowned from his family. I know who he is, who his family are, and more importantly, what his family are. It took very little to put together that his brother was a Death Eater, or at the very least mixed up with some nasty things."

"Oh?" Hermione felt her pulse rate rise, and the palm of her hand becoming a little sweaty on her teacup. She put it down on the table, just in case.

"Oh yes. He's Sirius Black. It was all in the papers, ooh, two or three years ago now. He's obviously been tampering with his appearance so he isn't noticed so much, but it's him, I'm sure of it. I'd tamper with my appearance, too, if I had that family out after me. Nasty affair, that. Families are capable of some awful things, Hermione, but his is one of the worst I've heard of, and I'm prepared to bet this whole cake that I don't know the half of it."

"What do you mean?" It was a relief she wasn't onto them as time-travellers, but then if someone mysterious was living next door to Hermione that wasn't the first conclusion she would have jumped to, either.

"Don't you know? I thought everyone did. His parents were accused of some very nasty things when he was disowned. I don't like this sort of gossip, Hermione, and I'm not sure I should be telling you this, but it's a matter of public record I suppose. You could find it in the papers. But I'm not enjoying this, not one bit." Hermione had heard that kind of protestation before, but she believed Jo.

"They denied it all, of course," Jo continued. "Said he was an unruly teenager who'd cast all the dark spells himself, and the Potters or whoever it was that took him in were welcome to him. I don't believe that for a second. Anyone who saw the photographs of that sixteen-year-old boy would have seen plain as the day that he was scared out of his wits. I think those Potters were right, his parents cast those spells, and he got away in time. You'd do well to stay away from those Blacks, and if you want to help him then you need to make sure he does, too. Nasty, nasty family."

"And this was all in the papers?"

"All over them. Witch Weekly, too, and what they call the society press. I'm surprised you didn't read any of it."

"I spent some time in America after I left Hogwarts. Perhaps it was then."

"Ah, yes, that would explain it. It all died down fairly quickly. I heard that the Black woman, what was her name, Sirius' mother, that she threatened the editor of the Daily Prophet. Other stories say she sent him a cursed object and he died, but I doubt that very much. There's no evidence whatsoever to support that theory. Oh duck, you're shaking, are you alright?"

"I just didn't know. And I was really rude to him earlier."

"Well, he may still have deserved it. I feel for him, though."

"So do I. Jo, my life is such a massive mess and I don't know what to do about it."

"Well, I like to take things one step at a time. What's the easiest thing to solve, maybe? Or the thing that's causing you the most distress? Work out one thing, and get it out the way, and train yourself not to panic too much about the rest of it until you've made yourself a bit of progress. That's what I always told my girls."

"Oh, Jo, I can't. I miss everyone. I miss my mum. I miss Ron."

"You can. Of course you can. Now, what's the place you're going to start? That boy, Ron? Whatever this argument with our Sirius is? Getting the confidence to go home? In the meantime, you're one of my girls. I can't replace your mum, I know that, but I can try and be of some motherly assistance."

Hermione softly dabbed at her tears. She thought of Mrs Weasley, the other surrogate mother-figure in her life, which lead her to think of Ron, and she started crying again.

"Ron… I can't think about Ron. I think he thinks I'm gone forever, or he's oblivious. I don't even know what I'd do if I saw him again. I don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life trying to get him to make his mind up. I've always hoped he'd do it of his own accord. I know he loves me. I just don't know if that means he wants to stay together forever. I don't know if I want to."

"Well, it doesn't have to be a permanent decision. Unless you get married, in which case you're rather stuck with the bastard for life, unless he can be persuaded to just ignore his marriage vows. Lots of them don't need any special persuasion for that. Now, what exactly did you say to him?"

"I said that I wasn't going to wait around forever, and that he needed to decide if this was something he wanted. I said I couldn't handle the chopping and changing and that he needed to commit or leave. I can't remember exactly. I think I told him to get out of my house and not to come back at one point."

"Sounds like you dumped him."

"I didn't!"

She couldn't have. She hadn't shouted 'you're dumped' or 'I'm finished with you' or anything else like that. But then she hadn't shouted that at Cormac McLaggen either, and they were unequivocally over.

In fact, she'd never said anything to McLaggen. She'd just sort of disappeared. Exactly as she'd done to Ron.

"I don't think I did," she finished. "I don't want to talk about Ron."

"That's quite alright. You don't have to," said Jo, pouring her another cup of tea. The teacup gave her a cheerful grin as Hermione raised it to her mouth, and then blinked.

"I just wish everything was simpler."

"Ah, don't we all. Look, my advice isn't worth much, but for what it is worth, I find these things do tend to even out in the end. Focus on where you want to be, and what you want your life to look like, and don't fuss too much about how you get there. And don't get caught up in this war we're supposedly having, and if you can keep Sirius out of it. Those Death Eaters are bastards, and they need to be told, mind."

It was a bit late for that, Hermione thought. Sirius had a point that they were complicit in these deaths, by not acting. She still wasn't sure that outweighed anything, but she was no longer able to deny that he had a point.

There was a large amount of screaming from the garden, and the smallest of Jo's grandchildren shot into the kitchen bleeding slightly, followed by the other two. All of them start shouting at once.

"I think it's best I deal with this, my dear," said Jo to Hermione, once she'd got all three children to calm down slightly. "Pop over later when they're in bed, if you like, and we can finish this."

Hermione let herself out the front door, and back into her own house. Luna was singing in the shower, judging by the sounds, and Ginny was cleaning her broomstick on the sofa.

"Where's Sirius?" asked Hermione. She felt the need to apologise to him. She had been unfair, and he didn't deserve the way she had spoken to him.

"Loft, I think," said Ginny. "He's put some kind of spell on it so none of us can get in. I'd leave him alone, he'll come out when he's ready. People always do."

"Ginny," said Hermione. "Do you think I dumped Ron?"

"I'd always assumed you had, you know. I thought that was the point. Dump him, and then get back together when he sorts his metaphorical shit out."

"Oh. Okay."

"Hermione? Are you alright?" Ginny was calling after her, but Hermione had already left the room. She went to her bedroom, and lay on the bed.

This was all such a mess.

All she wanted to do was go home, and make it up to Ron. He might be insensitive sometimes, and have a problem with commitment, but he was hers. She was meant to be with him.

But if she made it home, she'd be leaving Sirius here, and their happy future together might disappear from under her anyway. What if he started to meddle after she had left, and deleted Ron from history?

But if they didn't go back, Ginny wouldn't get to marry Harry. They both deserved that happiness.

But if they did, then Sirius could fuck that up too.

They could take him with them.

He wouldn't come.

Hermione must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up the house was dark. There was a distinctive smell of smoke, and the sound of shouts and screams from outside. The sound of the shouting and screaming of curses.

She leapt off the bed, and rammed open the sash window. The smoke filled her bedroom as the window opened, thick, acrid smoke that filled her lungs and made her cough and splutter.

The next house was on fire.

Hermione ran from the house, wand raised, Statute of Secrecy be damned. At least five Death Eaters crowded the area, throwing curses at the walls of the house. The back half was up in flames, there must be more around that side. The front wall was beginning to crumple, with stonework falling and nearly squashing a Death Eater. Good.

There was a roar from inside the house, and Jo's head appeared from the upper left window accompanied by her wand.

"And what the fucking hell do you hellions think you're doing to MY HOUSE!" she shouted, and with fury began to fire curses from her wand at a rate any seasoned Auror or Order member would be proud of. The older woman was not holding back.

"Filthy Mudblood, think you can fight us?" shouted a Death Eater with a mane of silvery-white hair from his hood. Lucius Malfoy. Hermione, as yet unnoticed, Stunned Malfoy. The aristocratic Death Eater hit the floor with a thud. Hermione hoped he cut that snooty face.

"We'll get you for that!" shouted another. "Don't you know who you're attacking there, old bitch?"

"Don't matter to me which one of you arseholes I kill," shouted Jo, in between spells. "But you won't get my grandchildren!"

Hermione stiffened. Jo's grandchildren. They'd been in the house this afternoon. They were staying with her, she'd said.

She needed to act fast. Luckily, the Death Eaters had taken that as a general shout rather than a signal of 'Mudblood children over here' and had continued to focus their efforts on Jo and on bringing down the house. Hermione made her plan.

Casting spells over herself that should keep the flames and the heat at bay at least for a short while, she dashed back through her own house and out into the garden. Ginny's startled shout distracted her for half a second at the most.

" _Reducto!_ " The fence between the two houses was down, and Hermione was able to get a good look at the back of Jo's house.

Most of the back of the house was impassable, including the back door, but the window into the back bedroom was free of flames. Hermione just needed to get up there.

"Ginny!" she shouted, as Ginny shot through the backdoor to join Hermione in the garden, laces of her shoes undone. "Levitate me up!"

"Are you bonkers?" shouted Ginny, but she pulled out her own wand anyway.

"Death Eaters! Children in there!" Hermione flew through the air, blasting her way through the upper window a moment before her body hit it. She pulled herself in, scraping her arm on the broken glass as she did so.

Down on the grass, Ginny was conjuring a ladder. Hermione stuck her head back out the window.

"Don't follow me!" she shouted. "I need someone to catch the kids!"

"Okay," Ginny replied, hanging the ladder from the windowsill with her wand. "I'll sort something!"

Hermione could not hang around, and was back into the house before Ginny had finished her answer. She didn't have to go far to find the children; Jo's two granddaughters and one of the grandsons were huddled in a bed in the same bedroom Hermione was standing in, looking understandably terrified.

"Come on," she said, indicating the window. Not one of them moved. "Hello," she said, crouching down next to the bed and trying a different tack. "My name's Hermione, do you remember? I was here this afternoon. I'm a friend of your grandmother's. I'm going to help you to safety."

She looked at the oldest one first, the boy, whose name she thought was Stephen.

"Stephen?" she asked. He nodded. "Do you think you can be a big, brave boy and show your sisters how to get out the window?"

He nodded again, although he looked not at all convinced. He couldn't have been more than six years old, with one baby tooth missing and a huge pile of curly brown hair. In his hand was a figurine of a Quidditch player.

"Ginny?" Hermione shouted, sticking her head back out of the window. "Ready?" In the garden, Ginny nodded. She had worked quickly, Transfiguring the garden rockery into a huge pile of squashy mattresses and bouncy things.

"Okay, Stephen," said Hermione. "That girl down there is my friend Ginny. She's going to help you. She's made a lovely pile of fun, bouncy things to land on, and I'm going to help you by slowing your jump with my wand. Can you do this?" Stephen nodded again, and threw himself out of the window almost immediately, as if to do anything else would have caused him to lose his nerve.

To Hermione's intense relief, he landed safely and Ginny scooped the boy up in her arms.

Hermione turned next to the older of the two girls. They were Lucy and Clare, although she had no idea which way around they went. "Can you go next?" she asked the older one.

"Need teddy," said the girl.

"Alright," said Hermione, projecting her best calm voice. The pace of the fighting in the front room was heating up, and the flames licking at the wall of the bedroom were progressing fast along the floral wallpaper. Soon, they would reach the door between the two rooms, and then she would not be able to get through to Jo. "Let's find that teddy."

Teddy had fallen under the bed, and Hermione was able to dispatch the four-year-old, who turned out to be Lucy, out the window without further ado.

Clare, aged two, was harder. She had grabbed onto Hermione the moment her sister had climbed onto the window frame, and was refusing to let go. Her thumb was in her mouth, and she was sucking frantically on it, a look of absolute terror in her tiny eyes. There was no way, short of bodily throwing her, that Hermione was going to get her down to the ground and the flames were less than a foot from the bedroom door.

The girl would have to come with her.

Hermione cast the same protective chairs over the tiny toddler that she'd used on herself, and pushed the bedroom door open. A rush of heat flew over them, making Hermione duck. Clare's hair blew upwards, and her thumb popped out her mouth.

"Shhh," muttered Hermione. Her entire sum of experience with two year olds was with Teddy Lupin, and he was four now. She had no idea how to calm one. "It's alright. We're going to check on Grandma Jo, and then we'll go find Jack and Lucy. How about that?" The girl looked calmer, but then Hermione had no way of knowing if she was now just so panicked that she was unable to react.

"Gramma."

"Yes, Grandma," said Hermione. She looked down the stairs as they passed them. Downstairs was full of flames, there was no escape that way.

In the front bedroom, Jo was still hanging out of the front window, screaming spells. Hermione could guess from the sounds of the battle that at least one, if not two more people had joined the fight against the Death Eaters attacking the house. Either the Order had arrived, or Sirius and Luna had gone out into the fight.

"Jo! Come on!" said Hermione.

Jo ducked down from the window as a curse crashed into the wooden frame and the whole thing flew backwards across the room to crash into the wall leaving a huge, window-shaped burn mark on the cream paint.

"Hermione! Thank goodness! Where are the others? Stephen and Lucy?"

"My friend Ginny has them, in the garden."

"Oh thank fuck. Hurry, get Clare out of here!"

"You need to come too!"

"I need to be here, covering your escape and fighting these fuckers." Jo made to straighten up again, and Hermione reached out to pull her back down.

"I'll do that, you take Clare and go!"

"I'm fine, Hermione. That fancy boy of yours has nearly got them down, him and the strange blonde girl. You'd best give him a big smacker of a kiss after this. I know I would. In fact, if I survive this, I've got half a mind to."

"Jo!" Hermione had no idea how her friend could be talking like that in a time like this. Then again, she had kissed Ron during the Final Battle in 1998. "You've got to leave."

"I've got to do what I've got to do," said the older woman, and stood at the window once more. "Run and take my granddaughter before I push you!"

Hermione tried to pull at Jo's arm, but the older woman wouldn't budge. Flames were licking at the doorway, encroaching into the front bedroom from the hallway. If she wanted a hope of getting the toddler out, she would have to leave now.

"I'm coming back for you!" she shouted, and dashed for the doorway.

They made it through, Hermione's sleeve catching fire. Running through the back bedroom, she managed to shuck her cardigan and leave it flaming on the floor. In the back bedroom, the bed was on fire, and little was left of the wall. Hermione should have warned the neighbours. They would know, wouldn't they? Shit, what if they had run out into the fight?

In the garden, Ginny had the two older children corralled into a corner and was standing in front of them with her wand out. She looked up at the sound of Hermione climbing through the upper window, and stepped forwards to catch the smallest one. Clare was still highly reluctant to let go of her rescuer, and Hermione climbed down the ladder slowly and carefully, the terrified toddler clinging on. Behind them, at full speed, the fire reached the window and the remaining glass exploded outwards. Flames had engulfed the window pane. They were out not a moment too soon.

"Hermione!" Ginny shouted, as Hermione and Clare made their landing. "Are you okay? Where's Jo?"

"Fighting," said Hermione. "I've got to go and help her!"

"I'll take the little one," said Ginny. Hermione handed Clare over, who seemed happy enough to cling to whichever adult was nearest. "I'm going to get them somewhere safe, and Patronus their mother. What was her name?"

"Helena," said Hermione. "I don't know her surname. Stephen might." Before waiting for a response from Ginny, she ran back through their own house to help fight the Death Eaters.

Arriving back at the front of the houses, the battle was nearly over. Jo, from her upstairs window, was fighting away, and the combination of her fierce defences and the fire meant that the Death Eaters had all but given up on gaining access to the house. Lucius Malfoy had got himself up out of the dirt, and was attempting to corral the other fighters into some kind of organised attack. Sirius and Luna were doing their best to impede them.

Hermione made to join the fight, but before she could do anything a horribly familiar green spell left the wand of one of the Death Eaters. His mask had fallen from his face, and the man behind it could not have been more than seventeen, pale and terrified at what he was about to do. Jo made to duck, but she was not as fast as the Death Eater and the spell hit her directly in the chest. Her eyes went blank, and she tumbled from the window.

There was nothing she could do, but Hermione raised her wand and used the same spell Ginny had to slow her fall.

Everything happened all at once. Too late, far too fucking late, there was the crack of Apparition and two Aurors and a couple of ordinary members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement appeared. The Death Eaters immediately began to Apparate away. Sirius jumped at one of them, pushing them to the ground and managed to pull their wand from his hand, but the other four had made it away before anything could be done. Sirius sat on the Death Eater's chest and pointed his wand at his face.

Hermione found herself at Jo's side, arms wrapped around her friend's lifeless body. It was still warm, but her back was bent at an improbably angle and her grey eyes stared at the stars but did not see them. There was nothing Hermione could do. This was not her first dead body. She knew there was nothing she could do.

The only thing left was to collapse over her and to cry.

Magical Law Enforcement were buzzing around, but Hermione barely noticed. Sirius had released the man he had tackled, and one Auror had taken him off into custody. The other was making their way around taking statements, from Sirius and Luna and then from Ginny, who had released the children over to their mother. The Auror had wanted to take statements from the children, but both their mother and Ginny had vehemently refused to allow for that to happen. The children had seen nothing except for fire.

"Hermione?" Sirius was at her shoulder. "The Auror wants to take your statement."

"What good does it do?" asked Hermione.

"Nothing. You know that. But it has to be done."

"No it doesn't. She's dead, Sirius, she was my friend."

"I know."

The Auror was hovering over them both. Jo's body had not even gone cold, but there was no time to mourn, just time to fill in fucking ridiculous swathes of paperwork and nobody was going to do anything to help her.

Hermione knew how this worked. The papers would be kept on file. In times of peace, they would be used to track down the perpetrator of the crimes. In times of all out war, with attacks every week, the parchment would be forgotten about by the time of the next emergency and this would happen over and over again until someone just did something. They could burn the whole department down, and they'd be no further away from catching them men that did it.

She didn't know who the man, boy, was who had cast the Killing Curse. She didn't find that she much cared. She knew who had egged him on; Lucius Malfoy. And he would get away with it all scot-free and be able to live his life like normal from 1981. He would live, and he would not be punished, and Jo was dead. Her friend was dead. Another friend was dead.

How many now? How many friends had died for this war? Too many.

Jo's grandchildren had nearly been killed, and nobody would be punished.

Hermione couldn't breathe.

None of this was fair. Why was it always the innocent ones? Why was everything so bloody shit?

The Auror was looking at her, with his quill and parchment raised.

Her chest tightened, constricting her breathing, and the whole scene swam before her eyes. Jo's body. The Death Eater, magically silenced and wrapped in magical ropes. The Aurors. Luna, cleaning a man's blood from her arm with a charm, one side of her long blonde hair caked in the blood too.

She couldn't breathe.

Her brain couldn't focus.

She just… she couldn't. Not now. She couldn't.

Hermione stood up, and pushed past Sirius and the Auror. She ran.


	20. Chapter 20: Aftermath

**Chapter Twenty: Aftermath**

 _Sirius_

 _November 1978, Saltburn Pier_

Sirius was knocked to the ground by the force of Hermione's exit. The Auror's clipboard followed him to the floor and, with an action that would have been comical in any other circumstance, hit Sirius firmly on the head. He pulled himself up, rubbing his head, and handed the clipboard back to the Auror. He noticed the man made no effort to help him up, or to get his own bloody clipboard back. Ministry dickhead.

"I need her statement," he said, with the air of a man who actively enjoyed a good bit of pointless bureaucracy. His monogrammed quill revealed him to be J. , and also a wanker, because only wankers bothered to buy monogrammed quills.

"Yeah, well, you'll have to wait, won't you?" said Sirius. "Can't you see she's distressed?"

"We have to follow the established procedures," said Howell. "We need to take a statement from everyone present tonight. That includes yourself, Mr…" He paused, waiting for Sirius to answer him.

By their feet, a member of the Magical Law Enforcement squad levitated Jo under a covering, and then took her away. Sirius watched her go. It was a noble way to die, he supposed, but that didn't exactly give him much comfort.

"Brown," he said, giving the first fake name that popped into his head. It was a shit one. At least he had no monogrammed items handy to give his name away. He'd left all of those at Grimmauld Place when he'd run away at sixteen. They'd returned to his life like a bad fucking Knut when he'd been forced back there, but this time he thought he was well shot of them.

"Sirius!" shouted Ginny, coming through their own house. A small, crying child was on her hip, and two more ran at her feet. "Are you alright?"

"Where'd you get the children?" asked Sirius. It wasn't an answer to her question.

"Jo's grandchildren," she said. "They were in the house. I've tried to get hold of their mother."

"You'll release them into Ministry custody," said Howell. He'd been tapping the clipboard with his quill, and most of the parchment was now covered in blobs of ink.

"Will not," said Ginny. "I doubt they want to be handed over into Ministry custody, and their mother is coming here."

"A moment ago you said you'd tried to get hold of her," said Howell. "You're changing your story, missy. I'll be taking you into Ministry custody, next, for knowingly preventing the work of the Ministry of Magic."

"I'm beginning to change my mind about the competency of the Ministry of Magic," said Ginny, hotly. "Answer me this, how is taking these children into Ministry custody the best thing for the wellbeing of the children? I wouldn't trust you to look after a Flobberworm."

"I'm going after Hermione," said Sirius, leaving Ginny to handle the Ministry official. She was doing a sterling job, and Sirius would have lost any remaining self control if he had remained to argue with them. As he disappeared down the street, he heard the sound of raised voices. Perhaps Ginny had less self-control than he had thought. He broke into a run, down the line of terraced houses that made up the street Jo had lived on, right, left, and along the clifftops.

Sirius caught up with Hermione at the pier. Panting with the exertion of running, something he was very much not used to, he stopped, to plan how to approach her.

She was sitting on the top of the railings halfway down the pier, legs dangling out to sea. Her hair flew wildly around her head in in the wind, her curls made fluffy and coarse by the sea air. Her wand was in her hand, but not in a fighting pose. With the cold, the wind and the time of night, the pier was otherwise deserted. No sensible person would be out on a night like this.

Sirius approached her slowly. After all, she had run off. She likely wanted to be alone. He felt he should check though. He had to know she was at least still here. She might be the sort that appreciated company.

And, besides, he had never trusted these Muggle installations with their thin wooden slats of a floor. He didn't like the gaps between them, revealing the dark grey waves below. If it was all to collapse, she might need help.

"Hermione?" His voice was quiet, and when he had no response he wondered if it had been lost in the wind.

She wasn't wearing a coat, and she must have been freezing.

"Hermione, I'm not going to stay if it's not what you want, but at least take my jacket." Sirius pulled off his black leather jacket and reached up, arranging it as carefully as he could around her shoulders.

"I can't do this anymore, Sirius." She was refusing to look at him, instead staring out over the waves, her voice flat and quiet.

"Do what?"

"This. I can't sit and watch innocent people die. They killed her. And there was no reason for it. Why, Sirius? Why did they kill her?"

"She was a Muggleborn, and she didn't try to hide it."

"It's not fucking fair!" Her voice changed to screaming, as she turned to face him. Her eyes were wide and tear-filled, and her cheeks were a blotchy red. "She never did anything to anyone! Never hurt any of them! She didn't deserve this! And the kids!"

"I know," he said. He was a little stuck for words.

She turned back to the sea, and her voice quietened. "Jo was my friend. She was a good person. She just tried to help people, most of the time, she always made cake for fuck's sake Sirius!" She was louder again, and then her voice dropped as if Hermione remembered herself. "She didn't deserve any of this. I just don't understand why. She always tried to help people, she didn't have a bad bone in her body."

"She bitched something terrible about the Muggle women in her UI group, or whatever it was, and she once pretended I was her late-night shag so that her neighbour would be scandalised. But yes, she was a good person. Nothing she did deserved her being killed."

"I don't get it. I don't get any of this. Why did they kill her, Sirius?"

"Because that's what Death Eaters do. They kill people they don't like, and they don't bother to delve into people's personalities on the whole before they cast their curse. She was doomed by her parentage. Not by her actions." He stuck his hands in his pockets. He'd liked Jo, too. She'd known who he was, and she hadn't had a reason to like him, and yet she'd opened her house to him anyway. It wasn't something people tended to do for him.

"Sirius? I want to try and change what happens. Have I done that already, do you think? I couldn't sit by as she died, or the children. I can't watch any more people die. Benji was bad enough, and I was prepared for that. I… I know it's unfair because I wouldn't do anything after he died, and you wanted to, but I just can't do this anymore, Sirius. I can't."

Now he very much was lost for words.

He had wanted her to say exactly that since they'd arrived here in June. He'd essentially begged for it more than once. Now, it felt as though it would be so incredibly insensitive to seem as if he was pleased by the turn of events. He was, of course. But someone had died.

But then if he didn't say something that suggested he was pleased she could assume he didn't want that any more and then she would rescind the offer. He didn't want that. He wanted to give her enough time to mourn the death of her friend, and then to start planning how to end this shit.

Would Jo have minded them cutting short the grief to spare more people's deaths?

Sirius didn't have a problem with the fact that the Order had likely jumped almost straight back into the war against Voldemort after his own, as it would have appeared to them, death. He'd always assumed they would, should he die. Jo was not a fighter, she hadn't signed up for her death if that's what it came to like Sirius had. But she had understood what was going on. What the dangers were.

In war, things had to move faster, didn't they?

He couldn't seem insensitive. It wasn't just that he didn't want to ruin his chances. He didn't want to further upset Hermione.

Sirius hadn't exactly cared about that before. Had he?

Hermione was watching him.

"Do you not want to do that anymore?" she asked.

"No, I do. Very much so. But someone just died, and you can't exactly leap about in glee that you're getting your own way after an innocent woman died."

"That's more a Death Eater trait, I suppose." There was the hint of a smile.

"Yeah. My dear cousin, for the start of that."

"Can we get Bellatrix first?" Hermione asked, spinning herself around on the railings to face him.

He had to resist the urge to hold his arms out and grab her in case she fell. It was highly unlikely she would fall. She looked steady enough, not wobbling even slightly in her seat. But he was nervous. He was never usually nervous. He put it down to the Muggle-made structure, the sea, and the overwhelming desire to not fuck things up just as they were going his way.

"You can get Bellatrix whenever you want to. She's one of the worst of them, and I'm not just saying that because we're unfortunately related." He stopped. It was worth a try to get some more information, one of the things he had given up asking Hermione. "Does she, did she die in your timeline?"

"Yeah. Molly Weasley killed her in the Battle of Hogwarts, at the end."

Sirius let out a low whistle. "Molly Weasley. Wow. Knew that woman had fire, I argued with her often enough, but I don't think I've ever seen her fight anyone. Let alone win against Bellatrix. Bella deserved it. If anyone deserves death, she did."

"I was dueling with Bellatrix. Me, and Ginny, and Luna. And she wasn't beating us, but we weren't beating her either. Then up pops Mrs Weasley, shouts 'not my daughter, you bitch!', which is the only time I've ever heard he say anything remotely close to swearing. And they have this duel and Molly kills Bellatrix. Half the room was watching, and the other half was watching McGonagall take on Voldemort, with Slughorn and someone else. I forget who, I was watching Molly."

"And to think I was frequently rude to Molly. I should have been worshipping her at her feet for dealing with my evil cousin."

"Bellatrix tortured me for information. She was going to give me to Greyback afterwards."

Sirius blinked.

He seemed unable to know what to say half the time lately.

What did one even say to that? All those conversational niceties his mother had taught him and Regulus and not one of them covered 'I'm sorry my cousin tortured you'.

With a cousin like Bellatrix, they really should have. Someone should have thought ahead and worked out what he should say in this situation.

"Shit. Sorry, that's not what you should say. Bellatrix is the worst example of humanity and if I hadn't already disowned my entire family I would disown her on the spot. I can kill her again for you, does that help?" Perhaps she wanted to kill Bellatrix herself. He would want to, in that situation.

"It's okay. It was a long time ago." She looked unconcerned, genuinely so, even as if she had forgiven Bellatrix. Nobody forgives things like that.

Whatever Hermione's state of mind, the statement made the hairs on the back of Sirius' neck bristle. He didn't like that she had been hurt, and by one of his own family members too. He'd fucking kill her. Hermione had said she wanted to, so she couldn't have forgiven her.

"So were a lot of things. Doesn't make them hurt any less. Doesn't make them any less fucking horrific and wrong. Can you please get down from those railings? You're making me nervous."

"You run into battle with Death Eaters without a backwards glance, and you're nervous about a witch sitting on a railing?"

"I never once claimed to be consistent. Although I think this is entirely consistent, actually, now I think about it. It's one thing to throw yourself into danger to protect others or to fight the forces of evil, and entirely another to do it for fun."

"I always argued Quidditch was danger for fun."

"I won't hear a word against Quidditch." How were they talking about Quidditch? He was supposed to be cheering her up. Sympathising about her fucking torture experience, if sympathising was the right word which Sirius was more than sure it wasn't. She hated Quidditch.

He used to be able to talk to people without fucking up, he was sure of it.

There was a lot at stake here. The whole future of the world. That was why he didn't want to upset Hermione. And because she was a genuinely decent person, if a bit hard-headed, know-it-all, and irritating. That wasn't something that was worthy of being tortured over. Remus Lupin was all of those things. Although he wasn't as…

Just exactly where was his brain going this evening?

"You're freezing," she said. "You've not even got any shoes on."

It was true. He'd run from the house with only his jacket, and then he'd given that to her. Which left him standing in the freezing November air, half out to sea, in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans that were a lot thinner than they looked. And suddenly he was feeling every bit of the cold.

"Take your jacket back," she said.

"No, you keep it," he said.

She laughed. "Ron used to always say to me 'are you a witch or not?'. There's a magical solution to this." She reached for her wand and cast a charm that warmed the air around them. "I used to think magic would solve everything, you know," she said, sadly.

"Much better," said Sirius. "The feeling might return to my toes soon." He gave them an experimental wiggle, and noticed that the ends of them had turned slightly purple. Still, they were likely to survive the night.

"You're an idiot," she said. Taking a couple of steps forward, she reached out to him and touched the goose pimples that had formed on his arms, and then placed her hands flat on his arms and gave them a vigorous rub. The touch made his arms prickle further, and he considered pulling his arms away. He didn't much want to, though.

"Yeah. Always have been an idiot." It was true. He had made a series of very bad choices along the way, and he was not going to make more. It was easy to say that. Harder to do.

"So, are we going to do this? Try and fix everything? Make it right?" she asked. She shook her head. "Oh Merlin, you must hate me. I spent months telling you that you can't try and help people, and then something happens to someone I know and like and I change my mind."

"I don't hate you," he said. "I actually rather like you. You know, you're clever, and you've not hexed me more than that once, and you stand up for what you believe in even if it's not popular. The world needs more people like that. In my experience, women hex me a lot." Ginny had said people didn't know he needed to hear that he was liked. He had a sneaking suspicion Hermione also needed to hear it from time to time.

It wasn't a lie, either. Well, he'd hated her at points. There was a small but not insignificant part of him that wanted to shout at her now about Benji and Regulus and what she could have done if only she had thought about all of this some months ago. When he'd told her to. He'd wanted to slap her at points. He never would have. A well-bred man never hit a woman. It was the only rule of his mother's he had thought worth keeping.

"I don't hate you either." She was watching him again. Her eyes felt as though they were looking at his soul as much as his face, uncomfortably so.

"That's always a good place to start." He tried to keep his tone light. "And, yes, we're doing this. We're going to sort this out. For Jo. As well as everyone else."

"For Jo," she whispered. She had turned away from him again, her gaze fixed on where the smoke still poured from the house on the cliffs. The house itself was invisible, tucked away as it was a street back from the cliff top, but the smoke was clearly visible from the pier. "And for everyone else."

"Harry," said Sirius. "James. Remus." The names were like a litany now. He said them often enough, usually before he went to sleep. On waking up in the morning. It helped, in a strange way, to remember the people he had felt something for. It helped him when he felt as though the world was closing in on him. It helped, when he'd spent those days lying in the loft eating his way through twenty-eight bags of salt and vinegar crisps from the Muggle corner shop after Benji's death, because that was all he had been able to face.

"Can I tell you something about Remus?" she said. "In the spirit of us wanting to make things right, I think you should know about him, about what he did, after you died."

"What?" he asked. He hoped it wasn't too sad. He didn't much want to cry tonight.

"He had a son, before he died. With Tonks. Teddy Remus Lupin, he's called, and he was a Metamorphmagus like she was and he isn't a werewolf, although Merlin knows Remus worried about that enough beforehand. He's funny, even though he's only little still, and he's got strong magic, you can just tell. Harry's his godfather."

"Harry would make a good godfather." It was happy news about his best friend, Sirius supposed, because Remus had always wanted children. He'd vowed never to have them, because of his condition, but Sirius knew he'd wanted them. But at the same time it was just so impossibly sad, because Remus had died and Teddy had no father. At least Harry would be a better godfather than Sirius himself had been. It was a low bar, admittedly.

"He is," said Hermione. "Although I told him not to buy that toy broomstick. I knew it would end badly. Teddy loves it, though, and he did only break his arm the once."

"I bought Harry a toy broomstick for his first birthday." Sirius smiled at the memory. "Did Tonks…" he asked, unable to finish the rest of his sentence.

"She died. Teddy lives with Andromeda, your cousin, in the week, and usually with Harry at the weekend." Hermione had started to cry again. Silently, tears rolled down her cheeks and her eyes turned red and puffy once more. Sirius had no idea what to do about this. He always let somebody else give comfort to crying people, especially crying women. It wasn't something he was any good at. And right now, he felt much like crying himself.

He tried to remember what it was that other people did when her crying continued, and she began to cry more noisily. Molly Weasley made tea, or gave out food. He had no tea or food without the trek back up the cliffs to the town, and did you take them with you or did you leave them behind while you went to fetch it? What else would Molly do? Shit, he'd never tried to emulate Molly before. This was the beginning of the end for Sirius Black, he was certain of it.

Molly gave hugs. Maybe he should try hugging her. Well, she almost certainly didn't want to be hugged by him, but it was worth a try. He stepped forwards, and ow!

Sirius made a squeaky, surprised noise and pulled himself away, grabbing his foot and hopping around in a circle.

"Fucking stood on a giant rock!" he said, in answer to Hermione's baffled and tear-stained face.

"You should have worn shoes," she said, with a look of superiority. It didn't last long, as she couldn't seem to prevent herself from laughing at his distress.

"Was a bit too busy panicking about Death Eaters to worry about something so mundane as shoes," he said. "Y'know. Priorities."

The worst part about it was that it was not the first time Sirius had been caught fighting Death Eaters without shoes on. It wasn't even the second time. It was turning into something of an unfortunate habit.

"You're a very strange man, Sirius Black," she said.

"At least you're not crying anymore."

"Was that the aim?"

"I was trying to give you a hug, but it went a bit wrong. I was trying to copy Molly Weasley. She's better at this sort of thing than I am."

"The thought was there. I don't really want to go back up to the town. Can we stay down here a bit longer, Sirius?"

"Of course." He would do anything right now, as he was still fighting the urge to leap around cheering. Hermione had agreed to what he wanted. Okay, the happiness he felt was tinged with a very definite sadness for their neighbour, who he had admittedly had little interaction with but had genuinely liked, and he was sorry she was dead. But nothing could quite overshadow how happy he was that he was going to be able to try and save his friends.

The more he thought about possible ways to save them, the more he had to admit it was going to be dangerous. If they weren't careful, they could do more damage. Especially as they would have to take out Voldemort for that to be safe, and a fair swathe of Death Eaters, and without the backup of an Order or the Ministry. Still, they'd not had the back-up of the Ministry in either of the wars Sirius had fought previously, and Sirius was prepared to kill even if the others weren't.

Saying it was one thing, and actually taking out an evil wizard was another entirely. They'd have to actually kill Lord Voldemort, and that was apparently quite hard to do judging by the amount of people who had tried and failed. Including Regulus, it seemed.

Oh fucking hell. Perhaps Hermione had been right not to interfere. Let Harry deal with it all in another twenty years. That would be easiest.

"You're not having doubts, are you?"

"What, me?"

"It's just, you've got the face on that Ron has when he's regretting something. Like joining the Aurors, because of the exams. Any exam, really. Joining the Quidditch team. Agreeing to be Harry's best man. George's stag do."

"Oh. Yeah. Just, it's not going to be easy, is it?" He was reluctant to say that, worried it would turn her back away from the idea of actually getting something done.

"No. But it's the right thing. Luna told me that doing the right thing is not always easy, and Dumbledore said it, and well, I think I'm finally understanding what they meant. I thought before it was about choosing just to fight evil, and I never understood, because that was always easy to me. But this, this is going to be hard."

"We're going to need a plan."

"I'd have thought you had one already." She looked at him as if she was assessing his worthiness. Sirius hoped she didn't know any Legilimency. There were things it was better she did not know.

"The beginnings of one."

"I… I can't deal with that tonight, though. I just want to sit here and think about Jo, and maybe cry again. Can we do that bottle smashing thing again? It felt good. I understand if not, if it's your thing for you and your friends. But I'd like to, to remember Jo."

"It should be gin. Jo liked gin."

"Okay, gin it is then."

"And Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Just trust me, yeah? We can do this."

And, ooh, at least half of Sirius Black's brain believed that what he had just said was true.

 **End of Part One**

 **a/n: Thank you to my beta, Rachael. Thank you also to everyone who is reading. I've loved getting your thoughts on the story so far!**

 **Stay tuned for part two, where our little gang attempt to fix things. There'll be more Death Eaters, including more from Regulus, some members of the first Order of the Phoenix, and the beginnings of a romance.**


	21. Chapter 21: Dust ---PART TWO---

**a/n: massive thanks to Rachael and to my reviewers :)**

 **Chapter Twenty-One: Dust**

 _Hermione_

 _December 1978, Saltburn_

She had made a decision, the night that Jo had died. At what point, she wasn't sure. Had it been when she had realised that her friend was in danger? Had it been when she had seen her die? Or at some point after, or in between. She had decided she would do something. Save someone. Stop this. What exactly she would do, Hermione did not know.

Her life had always had a clear path to it. From the age of just twelve years old, she had known that she would help Harry with whatever he needed her to do, and then she would have a career. She would have an interesting boyfriend, and she would probably marry him, and she might have children. Two, if she had any. She hadn't enjoyed being an only child. The path had changed, at times, shifting to reflect her preferences. She'd refined the career choices, changing from a desire to teach or be a Healer to working in the Ministry. She'd assumed she would complete her seven years at Hogwarts, and had instead followed Harry into the hunt for the Horcruxes. But she had known where she was going. She'd still got her NEWTs. She had always stayed on the path.

And now she was here, and she had been planning to go home. Back to the safety of her Ministry life, to the wedding of two of her best friends, to Ron. She still wanted to be with him. She was almost certain of that. It was just distance that was making her feel disconnected from him. Six months away, almost. That was enough to make anyone doubt their love. She did love him.

Ron loved her. He challenged her. Other men seemed to want her as some sort of prize half the time, the great Hermione Granger who had been responsible for the death of a segment of Voldemort's soul, who had fought alongside Harry Potter, who was not only a war hero but a rising star within the Ministry. A future Minister of Magic, perhaps, said the whispers. At the very least an influential department head. She had the ear of Harry Potter, the Minister, the Headmistress of Hogwarts.

The way those men looked at her, the way they spoke to her, she felt like a collector's piece. Not a woman. Ron saw her as a person. He told her when she was wrong. He let her be less than perfect. He was there when she needed him.

He wasn't there now.

Why the fuck wasn't he here now?

Hermione lay on the bed, staring up at the swirling pattern of the Artex on the ceiling. Her eyes traced the curves and lines, as she tried not to think about how far off her life's path she had fallen and how she had so little hope of getting back to where she had intended to be. There was an urge to pick at the little stippled bits. She could do that now, if she levitated herself up. She'd never been able to reach as a child.

She was supposed to be dressing for the funeral.

She had received an owl a few days after Jo's murder, inviting her to the funeral of her friend and containing a note from Jo's daughter Helena.

 _Dear Hermione,_

 _I wanted to invite you to my mother's funeral. She spoke about you once or twice, and I think she'd have wanted you there. If you don't wish to come, we won't be offended, I don't know how close you were._

 _I also need to thank you for what you did for the children. They are still a little shaken, but all of them are well and most importantly they are safe. I am forever in your debt for what you have done for me. There are no words to say how grateful I am for what you did, at such risk to yourself. Anything that you require from me is yours._

 _I would like very much if you could attend the funeral. I would like to thank in person the woman who saved my children._

 _Yours,_

 _Helena Bridlington_

Hermione intended to go, of course. All four of the residents of their little house planned to. Sirius had said that Jo had given him good advice, and that he ought to pay his respects. Ginny was concerned for the children, and wanted peace of mind that they were recovering from the ordeal. Luna had given no reason for attending.

It was funny how, when you made the decision that would have prevented all of this had you only made it earlier, you didn't feel any better. Hindsight is 20/20, her mother had said. Hindsight was a bitch.

Sirius had never said I told you so. Hermione was honest enough about herself to know that she would have said it to him.

Such a decision to act had always made her feel powerful, before. She didn't feel empowered at all. She felt as though she should have known better. How could she have been so stupid to think that she could have had a life where everything remained normal just for a few years? Where she had done her time of war and danger and saving the wizarding world?

Why did she have to be thrown back in to it all again?

Had she not done her time?

Sirius had lived through two wars. Three. Shit. Remus had done two. Mad-Eye. Dumbledore. Minerva. It wasn't really so rare. She wasn't anything special, not really.

But this was the right thing. Wasn't it? It was. She hadn't realised that before. Perhaps she had been too wrapped up in the desire for normal, and for things to be how they should have been. She was not somebody who stood by to watch innocent people die. She had always been the girl who fought for them to live, even when it wasn't what was best for her. It was who she was. She just needed to let go of any expectation of normal, and…

There was a knock at the door.

"Hermione?"

Sirius.

"I'm coming." She was dressed. Her hair was done, a minimal amount of makeup applied mostly just to hide the redness around her eyes. It wasn't as if she wasn't physically ready to attend this funeral.

"It's fine," he said, standing in the doorway with a set of black robes on. His hair was brushed, his face paler than usual. "Ginny says we've got ten minutes before we need to leave. I thought I'd check you knew that."

She could do this.

They Apparated to the appointed spot just outside of the graveyard, and they filed in through the arched gateway slowly with Ginny taking the lead. All of them were well practiced at magical funeral etiquette. Dumbledore's, the first Hermione had attended, had been a shock compared to the much more sombre Muggle affairs she had been to as a child and a teenager.

After that, they'd come thick and fast. She'd counted eleven in the first week after the last battle, and there had been more after that. The stragglers went on into July. Harry insisted on attending all of them, and Hermione and Ron would never have let him go alone. Neither would Ginny. Sirius had attended no fewer, but they had been a different set.

The four of them sat at the back of the small funeral building for the service, and stayed at the back at the graveside. None of them had much of an intention to go to the wake; they would have felt like imposters. Or Hermione would have. Instead, they lingered at the graveside for a moment, to pay their respects, and then made to leave. Hermione tailed behind Sirius, feeling out-of-place and almost as if she were floating.

"Ginny?" A short, brown-haired woman spoke from beside them, Jo's youngest granddaughter Clare clinging to her leg. She had a resemblance to Jo in her face, if a darker complexion.

"Helena," said Ginny, giving the woman a hug and crouching down to say hello to the child. "This is Hermione." She pointed up from the floor at Hermione. "She's the one who saved your children. And this is Sirius, and Luna, who were trying to help your mum."

"Hi," said Hermione. To her surprise, Helena enveloped her into a massive hug.

"Thank you," she said. "For my children. I can't ever do enough to repay you."

"You don't need to," said Hermione. "Jo was a good friend to me, and anyone would have helped those children." Her voice didn't sound like her own.

"That, unfortunately," said Helena, "we know to not be true. I thought they were safe with my mum. I didn't know she was being targeted."

"Nobody did," said Sirius. "They're bastards, it wasn't your mum's fault. She was a great woman."

"Thank you," said Helena. "It means a lot."

Hermione's stomach fell. She had seen that man outside their house. The man with the dark cloak. She had assumed they had been watching them, but what if they had been watching Jo, instead? What if she had been given a chance to act, and had not?

"Hermione? Are you okay?" Sirius' voice jolted her back to the conversation.

"Yes. Sorry. I'm fine." Hermione blinked several times, to remove the image of the man in the dark cloak standing in the drizzle from her mind. Helena, along with the others, was watching her with a look of concern in her eyes.

"You don't have to apologise to me. Without you, my kids wouldn't be here today, so I'm going to forgive you almost anything at this point." Helena looked down at Clare, still attached firmly to her leg, and then across the graveyard to where the other two children sat on a bench with a man Hermione presumed to be their father.

She wondered if that forgiveness extended to forgiving that it was Hermione's fault that her mother had been killed. She could have got Jo out earlier. But she'd been so self-absorbed that she had first assumed that the man had been after her, and then secondly forgotten all about it in Benji's death. She had failed Jo, and the children.

"I think it's about time we left," said Sirius. "It was very kind of you to invite us. Hermione's been very affected by it all, as you can see, and I'd like to get her home now."

Helena tried to persuade them to stay, and Sirius politely declined. He knew all the niceties to say in these situations. Ginny handed out the small toys she'd bought for Helena's children, who were pleased to see her but still had a look of slight trauma in her eyes, and then they left.

Hermione tried to Apparate, but found herself unable to do so. She twirled on the spot, and again, and again more quickly, but instead of the air parting for her it was as if she was twisting into a brick wall. Ginny offered her an apologetic look, which just made Hermione begin to sob. Calmly, Luna took her arm and Apparated them both away.

They walked back around the terrace and into the house, and Hermione felt as though she was watching the procession from above. Three witches and a wizard in dark dress robes, with the signs of sadness and recent crying. The burned-out house next to them, which had been given a glamour by the Obliviators so that the Muggles saw it as just empty. They'd been told Jo had died of a gas leak, and the neighbouring Muggles on the other side had been evacuated.

Hermione lay on the sofa inside, as the other three fiddled around getting lunch and water and whatever else it was they thought were necessary. Hermione didn't want lunch. She could have stopped all of this.

"Hermione, come on, you've got to eat," said Ginny, crouching beside the sofa.

"I don't want any lunch."

"I know. And I accepted that. But this is tea. I can allow you to miss one meal, but not two."

"I don't need it. I saw a man outside the house before Benji died, Ginny. I could have stopped all of this."

"Oh yeah? And why would you assume a mysterious man outside a house is going to come and kill the inhabitants? This isn't your fault."

"This is a war. I should have known."

"Exactly, it's a war. You can't prevent every death."

"Let me try." Sirius gently relocated Ginny and her tray of soup and bread further away from the sofa, and took her place next to Hermione. "Look. I've just been here, I've felt like this, and I can tell you for a fact that it sucks. It's horrible. It makes you feel like you want to curl up and die too, yes? That you're worthless?" Hermione nodded. "Well, a very wise man named Remus Lupin once told me that was how they win. They beat all the good people down, either killing them or making them look like this," he indicated Hermione lying on the sofa, "and then they win. I spent a week like this recently. Did it help? No. We won't let them win, will we?"

"No." She didn't much feel that right now, but she didn't want to let Voldemort win. She didn't even want him to have a temporary victory.

"Well, start by eating. Can't win a war on an empty stomach. Don't worry, it's safe, Luna cooked it." Hermione forced out a small smile. The last time Sirius had cooked, he'd given them all food poisoning. God knows what he'd done to the beefburgers to cause food poisoning.

"Thanks." She took a small spoonful of the soup that Ginny passed over, and it did taste nice. Carrot and coriander, with fresh bread. Luna was a good cook.

She couldn't prevent herself from feeling guilty, but there was some truth in what Sirius said.

"You don't have to cope on your own, you know. You don't always have to be strong. We can help, if you let us." He was deliberately not looking at her.

"I could have said the same to you, a few days ago."

"Yeah, and I wouldn't have taken your advice then, because I'm widely considered to be a stubborn, pig-headed git."

"You missed out arrogant and unhelpful."

"Ah yes, I did."

"And mopey and rash," said Ginny, from the other side of the room.

"Right, is this pick on Sirius hour? Because if it helps Hermione feel better, I'm up for it, but it's a one-time deal."

"Excellent," said Ginny. "You know what I miss about not having my brothers around? They're great fun to insult. Do you rise to the bait as easily as Ron and Percy, or can you throw them back as well as Fred and George and Charlie?"

"The latter," said Sirius. "What about Bill?"

"He says insulting people is childish, and usually walks off. Wanker."

"Who's a wanker now?" asked Luna, coming into the room from the kitchen. Her blonde hair was pinned on top of her head with what looked suspiciously like a wooden spoon.

"Bill," said Ginny. "Specifically, that is, but more generally, most men."

"Oi," said Sirius. "I am a shining example of masculinity." He flexed his arm. "Well, you'll have to use your imagination on the muscles. I used to have them. I was widely considered the most attractive boy in Hogwarts once Gideon Prewett left."

"Okay, apart from this fine specimen in front of us, of course." Ginny flopped backwards into the armchair.

"Don't you go hitting on me, you're engaged to my godson."

"No offence, Sirius, but I like my men, well, skinnier. Kinda lanky. Glasses. The bookish look. Saviour of the world types. Scars."

"That's not the most flattering depiction of Harry," said Luna.

"I've got scars," said Sirius, rolling up the sleeve of his robes. "Look. This one's where Remus bit me, and no, not as a werewolf. He was a hundred percent human, and it was at breakfast. I flirted with the girl he had been secretly lusting after for months. This one's where I fell down the stairs at Hogwarts, because I had so much food I'd nicked from the kitchens in my arms that I could no longer see the steps. And this one, well this one is where Peter Pettigrew bashed me over the head with a frying pan in Charms, because I'd hit him with a rubber chicken. The two are not comparable. Flitwick gave us both detention."

"Real manly, all of those," said Ginny, shaking her head.

Hermione ate her soup, and realised that this was all completely absurd. She'd seen real scars on Sirius, ones that proved that even if he wasn't the saviour of the wizarding world, he was certainly as brave as Harry and had faced almost as much. And someone had died, they'd been to a funeral, and Ginny was pretending to flirt with her fiancé's godfather and everyone was far more concerned with whether Hermione ate any soup than how to win this war.

Everyone had their coping mechanisms. She remembered Ron and that radio in the tent when they'd been hunting Horcruxes. Twiddling those dials, day after day, trying to hear news of his family. It had passed the time. It had made him feel calmer when he was powerless.

They didn't have to be powerless any more.

Well, she hadn't broached that with Luna and Ginny, yet. She'd known Sirius would agree. He had nothing to lose. Everyone else here had far more at stake.

"Luna? Ginny?"

"Yes?" said Luna.

"Sirius and I have been thinking. Talking. We'd like to try and fix all this, the war, I mean. Make it so that less people have to die. Give Harry a family. We could all grow up in peace."

"Good," said Ginny. "I'm in." She glanced at Sirius as she spoke.

"Oh, of course, I am too," said Luna. "It's rather an interesting idea, don't you think? We'd have an awful lot of power. Although perhaps that means we should not do it, but when it comes down to it, I think that we should."

That was easier than Hermione had been expecting.

"Have you all been discussing this?" she asked.

"No," said Luna, clearly baffled at the idea that she might have.

"Yes," said Ginny and Sirius.

"But only once," added Ginny. "A week ago. No more than that. We're not conspiring against you or anything. Sirius doesn't have the subtlety."

"As much as I'm pained to admit it, that's true," said Sirius.

"So we're going to do this?" asked Hermione. She hadn't expected this discussion to go this way. It had been so easy. But if they'd all done their thinking, maybe it was.

And that was how, two evenings later, they ended up on another anonymous Muggle street, watching and waiting. Ginny, the one with by far the best reflexes, was balanced on the roof of the house next door to the one they had under surveillance. She wore dark trousers and jumper, the brightness of her ginger hair disguised with a bottle of Muggle hair-dye. The Death Eaters, according to Sirius, frequently cast a net of spells to secure their approach and identify anyone lurking around on arrival at an attack, and Ginny was to Disapparate from the roof at the first sign of their arrival and send a signal.

Several streets back, Hermione, Sirius, and Luna waited. The waiting was by far the worst part, and usually the part where Hermione began to doubt herself.

"Ready?" asked Sirius. His hair was tied back with something of Luna's, a hair bobble with a small pink flower attached. It clashed horribly with the leather jacket and biker boots that were his preferred Muggle clothing. He apparently owned no hair bobbles of his own, despite his hair now being past his shoulders.

"Ready," confirmed Luna.

Hermione wasn't.

Ginny's signal came slightly before they had anticipated, but within Sirius' estimated time for the arrival of the Death Eaters. His last time around, he'd been at Headquarters when a tip had come in from the Auror Department of suspicious activity. The Order had scrambled together a small force, but had arrived to the bone-chilling sight of the Dark Mark hovering over the terraced house, the brown wooden front door blown off its hinges, and the unmistakable scent of death in the air. Sirius and James Potter had entered the house. The bodies had been in a row. Two were unharmed, except for being dead; victims of the Killing Curse. The third was twisted and mutilated.

Sirius had told that story with a tear in his eye, and the resolve of a man who was determined to not allow history to repeat itself in such a way. He had that look again now, as they crept through the alleyway connecting the lines of terraces. His wand was outstretched, his sleeves rolled up. One arm was a criss-cross of scars, whether inflicted by childish Marauder pranks or the harder aspects of his life Hermione did not know.

"I'm going to transform," he said. He stopped them at the entrance to the alleyway, a small tunnel between two houses with the upper floor of one of them over their heads. "I can get closer that way, without detection. When I transform back, cover me."

Before either Hermione or Luna could say a thing, the large black dog was trotting off onto the street. He went from the light of the street lamps into darkness.

"Remember the plan," said Luna to Hermione, extinguishing the light on the end of her wand with a muttered ' _nox_ '. Ginny trotted up behind them as she did so.

Sirius was next to the Death Eaters now, the black dog lurking just out of the line of sight of the four masked and robed figures.

"One of those is Snape," whispered Ginny. "I'd recognise that nose anywhere."

"Dolohov," said Hermione. She'd recognise him anywhere.

"And two unknowns," replied Ginny. "One of them's a woman, or very short."

Speculation time was over, as one of the unknown Death Eaters took a step forward and removed their wand to point it at the front door. Sirius transformed back into a man, and Stunned the Death Eater before he managed to blast the door open. That removed his advantage, and suddenly he had three of them facing him down with their wands drawn. Within seconds the street was filled with bangs and flashes of light, curses and hexes shouted out and the sound of a woman screaming from inside a house.

Luna, Ginny and Hermione ran from their alleyway out into the fight, spells flying as they did so. Luna took on Snape, singling him out into a duel while Sirius battled Dolohov. Hermione and Ginny were left with the third unknown Death Eater, a pale-faced, blond man with a ring through his left nostril. Nobody held back.

A Muggle ran onto the street, shouting "Bloody yobbos! I'll call the police, I will, whatever it is your doing here ought to be banned!" and fell to a slice of Snape's wand. Luna used the opportunity, throwing him to the floor with a well-timed Trip Jinx. She threw her wand back for a further assault, but the angry Snape was quicker. Instead of going for Luna, he pulled himself to a half-standing position and blasted at the door, scrabbling with his legs at the floor until he was upright again and running it at it. He had made it most of the way when Luna hit him with a Stunning Spell.

"It's the fucking Order of the Phoenix!" shouted the unknown Death Eater, throwing Ginny to the floor with the force of a spell hitting a car in the street.

"That we aren't," shouted Sirius, swiping at Dolohov with green flames from his wand. " _Incarcerous!_ " Dolohov dodged the spell, and another from Luna, and a set of flying daggers from Sirius. It was two lots of two-against-one, now, and they were still having to fight hard to hold off the Death Eaters. "I'm not sure what we are, actually, but we're not that." He looked at Hermione, Dolohov took the chance. Sirius was Stunned on the floor.

" _Renervate!_ " That was Ginny, a well-timed shot from behind the car and a Shield Charm to protect Sirius as he staggered to his feet.

Hermione took care of Dolohov. With a swish of her wand his robes broke apart and his chest broke out into boils. He screamed, slashing out with his wand in all directions. Several windows smashed, a car crumpled, and Hermione threw herself to the floor alongside Ginny.

The telltale crack of an Apparition was almost lost in the chaos, but there was the rather distinctive face of Mad-Eye Moody.

"Get out!" screamed Dolohov, clawing at his chest, and disappeared. The pierced Death Eater grabbed Snape's unconscious body and followed him, as more members of the Order of the Phoenix began to arrive.

Hermione looked at Ginny, Luna looked at Sirius and the four of them disappeared as if they had coordinated it. Landing back on their own street, unharmed and successful, Ginny let out a whoop and soon they were all dancing around in the street and clinging off each other's arms and cheering themselves. They'd done something. Innocent lives had been saved. Three people had lived who would otherwise have died, and nobody as far as they were aware had died in their place.

Sirius was spinning Luna around, the glee in his handsome face completely undisguised. When he looked genuinely happy, Hermione could almost forget his twelve years in Azkaban, the years that had taken away much of the easy good-looks she'd seen in photographs. It wasn't that he was unattractive, now, but it was a harder beauty. It was the face of someone who had been consistently screwed over by the world around him, but who had not lost the essential components of who he could have been.

The years had not been kind to Sirius Black, and yet he remained able to see the good in the world tonight.

Hermione was not sure that she could.

She hung back on the pavement as the other three danced and twirled and leapt around in the street, like dancers in one of the musical films Hermione's mother had loved so much. A passing car honked its horn; they were in the way of the bright red Ford Escort. The noise and the lights barely disturbed them.

They had saved three people, and yet there would be more. There would be deaths that, however hard they tried, they would be unable to prevent. There had been two Muggleborn families targeted tonight. Sirius had only known the address of one of them. The others would have died as the Death Eaters had intended.

Saving some of the people who would ordinarily die was, logically, better than saving nobody. Everyone knew there were deaths in a war. They were just four, trying to change the course of something that hundreds of witches and wizards were fighting in.

Ginny fell back beside her, her eyes full of the excitement of a successful evening's work.

"Hermione, we did something," she said, as if she knew what Hermione had been thinking. "A week ago, a few days ago, we wouldn't have done anything. You don't regret it, do you?"

"No," said Hermione. She was sure that she didn't. A very small part of her, the perpetual student part, still argued the theoretical reasons why they should not be doing this. But the whole of her, when it came down to it, understood why they needed to do this now. "I don't regret a thing. I just… there's so many, Ginny."

"And we'll do what we can. Harry saved the wizarding world doing what he could. Don't hold yourself to a higher standard than you'd hold the Chosen One to."

"Come on, Hermione!" Sirius grabbed her by the hand and swung her into the road. She let him, and she let him twirl her around until she felt dizzy. When he let up, she collapsed sideways into him giggling like a teenager, and he grabbed her with his arms and pulled her into him to prevent her from falling. His body was warm, comforting, safe. She was doing the right thing. Sirius was looking down at her as if she had done well, they had all done enough.

"Hermione! Sirius!" Ginny shouted, from the doorway of their house. "Celebratory drink!"

"We're coming," Sirius replied, releasing Hermione. For a moment, there was something missing as he crossed the street and went onto the pavement. She shook the feeling off. It was an emotional night. An emotional week. If she pushed it, an emotional year.


	22. Chapter 22: Mistakes

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Mistakes**

 _Sirius_

 _December 1978, Saltburn_

Sirius could not remember the last time he had felt so fucking _happy_.

He was singing in the shower these days. He ate breakfast with relish. Not literal relish. Generally milk, or butter on the rare occasions he chose to eat toast. He went flying with Ginny just for fun. He actually did a little dance at one point, and Sirius was not sure if he had danced since he'd done the 1970s the first time around.

Christmas was coming, and this was two Christmases in a row he would have had fun for. In terms of how his life fitted together, rather than any obvious chronology that the rest of the world was following. Well, actually, Christmas had generally been happy. Christmas 1980 had been the last time all four Marauders, and Lily and Harry, had been together in one place before they'd all started pointing their wands at each other amid accusations of treachery. Well, just him and Remus had done that. It had been bad enough that way.

He wanted Christmas decorations, and ventured into the nearest Muggle city of Middlesborough to visit something called a department store with Hermione and Luna. He then went to Diagon Alley with Ginny, under heavy self-Transfiguration, to buy some Christmas decorations that acted like Christmas decorations should. Yes, some of the Muggle ones burst into song from time to time, but you couldn't have an argument with a Muggle decoration and none of them chased you round the room. It just wasn't Christmas without that.

They did general shopping, too, with the last of the Muggle money Sirius has got from Gringotts. He supposed they would have to do something about their financial situation after Christmas. He stocked up on socks, Luna bought food supplies, and Hermione bought something called 'flip-chart paper'.

"What the hell?" asked Sirius, when she came out of the little stationers with it. "What's that massive parchment for?"

"Planning," she said, tucking the roll neatly under her arm. "You can get more information on one sheet."

"You can on parchment. You just unroll it further. Remus once managed a twelve foot long essay. Lily managed one that was ten feet. Peter's longest was nine-and-a-half." He looked at her, with an appraising sort of look. "You look like the sort that would have written a twelve foot long essay." She did as well.

She snorted. That meant she'd taken that the way it was intended, at least. He was never sure at the moment how far to push things with Hermione. Ginny, he understood. She was almost always good for a joke. He'd crossed into light pranking with Ginny, and she'd responded in kind. If she didn't feel like it, she told you straight up. Sirius liked that. And Luna was so impossible to read that he didn't think he'd ever even know if he'd offended her or if he even knew what her point was. Sirius Black was technically a genius, McGonagall had told him so, but he'd be damned if he understood half of what Luna was talking about at any moment.

"Quality over quantity," Hermione said. "My twelve foot essay was just filling parchment, by the end."

"Which is advisable in many things," said Luna. "Although perhaps not relationships. Quantity can teach you a lot that quality can't."

That was Sirius' point. Nobody had been talking about relationships. But this was the girl who still maintained she wasn't ruling out that they were all dead.

Their house was crammed with Christmas decorations by the middle of December, and it was at times difficult to traverse the downstairs rooms without bashing into something. Ginny, it turned out, did not approve of the fleet of miniature wooden reindeer that occasionally took flight across the living room, or the talking wreath he'd hung on the kitchen door. For what it was worth, Sirius had no love for tinsel. Gaudy, nasty stuff. Ginny was very taken with tinsel.

Hermione opened the door just as the reindeer flew past it, and blinked rapidly several times at the sight and the noise of a singing statuette of Santa Claus. The statuette was Muggle, the charmwork Sirius'.

"How's things at the hedge?" asked Ginny, from her armchair. "Do you think one of us needs to go out there?"

"No," said Hermione, taking off her wooly hat and its matching hand-knitted mittens. "There's nothing going on. Sirius said it would have happened by yesterday, we've done an extra day, and there's still nothing."

"My memory could be wrong," said Sirius, but even as he said it he doubted that it was true. He had an excellent memory. It was one of his few positives.

"I don't think it is," said Hermione. "You said Dolohov was the one setting the wards around the building, and a short man, and we fought Dolohov and a short man. The shorter man was Stunned, and still on the floor unconscious when Moody arrived. There's absolutely no way he wasn't the one reported in the Prophet yesterday as being in Ministry custody. The Prophet said Moody apprehended him trying to attack a Muggleborn household, and it all fits. Dolohov was in a state, too. They must not have done it, because they weren't able to."

"Why hasn't somebody else, though?" asked Ginny. "You'd have thought Voldemort just would have got somebody else to do the work."

"We don't know how their structures work," said Sirius. "We know a bit from Snape, I mean. We know Voldemort is unlikely to give that level of instruction himself, and that most of them are so paranoid about someone else stealing their position that they won't admit what they're doing to anyone except the man himself and their closest confidants. We don't even know what's in there. It might have been somehow linked to the attack we stopped, and so irrelevant now."

"Well," said Luna, who had gone to the kitchen and was now carefully shredding the peel from a large orange with her wand. "It may remain a mystery. It may not."

"There's one way to find out, for certain, I mean. We'll have to go." Ginny stole a piece of the orange from Luna.

"We could do that," said Hermione. "We know where it is. We know no Death Eater has set foot there for the three days we've been watching."

"What would it achieve?" asked Luna.

"If we know what's there, we know more about what we're facing," said Sirius. "At the moment, we're relying on my admittedly exceptional memory, a lot of which only really covers what myself, James or Peter was involved in, and stories you three have heard from other members of the Order. All we know about this is that James was tracking Dolohov for something completely unrelated and we saw him and another Death Eater place strong wards on a glorified shed in Cumbria yesterday."

"Do you think it's relevant?" asked Hermione.

"At this point, I don't think we really know what's relevant," said Sirius. "If we want to take down the Death Eaters, surely information helps."

"Dad told me once that he thought Snape's spy role was one of the most intrinsic things to the success of the Order in the second war," said Ginny. "He says you had nothing like that, the first time around."

"No, we didn't," said Sirius. "It's how a lot of good people got killed. We relied on getting up close and personal with them to find out what they were up to, which resulted in people getting killed on spying missions or being identified and targeted later."

Hermione took the roll of flip-chart paper from where it had been residing on the coffee table and spread it out. She took a quill and ink from her bag, setting it up beside the paper.

"What do we know?" she asked.

"We know that, after the one we prevented, there were no further Death Eater attacks until the New Year," said Sirius. "At the time we believed they were planning something big, although it was possibly just down to the absurd level of parties pureblood hold at this time of year. Hogwarts term ends in a couple of days." Hermione wrote the date of the last attack at the top of the parchment, paused, and then inserted Jo's death above it in her sloping handwriting.

"And what happened in 1979?" asked Hermione.

"There was a series of attacks on members of the Order," said Sirius. "Edgar Bones and his family narrowly escaped on the second of January. I doubt we need to intervene there. Then there was Ianthe Hestherdown on the third. She died. Muggles found her body before we did, so we had a logistical nightmare as well as the grief. They attacked two more houses on the fifth, and another on the sixth. Two of those were Order members, and one was a misidentification. All had at least one death, although one was a Death Eater. A newish recruit, one of my brothers'."

"Okay." Hermione scribbled frantically on the flip-chart.

"And we're trying to save all these people?" asked Ginny.

"Not the Death Eater," said Sirius, firmly. Hermione looked for a brief second as if she wanted to argue that point, but Sirius didn't. He wasn't exactly pro-killing people, but he didn't feel the urge to go out of his way to save people who were more than prepared to kill him in return for the favour.

"Clear boundaries and expectations are good," said Ginny. "That's a start. What's our end game?"

"Harry," said Hermione and Sirius, together.

"Excellent," said Ginny. "Glad to know everyone's so invested in saving my yet-to-be-born fiance."

"If we kill Voldemort before then," said Sirius, "we won't have to go near that." And, he thought, Remus won't have to go through anyone telling him to fuck off and that they thought he was the spy. Nobody will make him crumble like that again.

"We don't know where to find Voldemort," said Hermione. "And there's the…"

"Perhaps we should go back a step," said Luna. "We need information, first."

Sirius had almost forgotten she was there, with her neat pile of orange peel balanced on the arm of the armchair she was sitting in.

"Information, and an end point," said Ginny. "Which is fine if that's Harry, but I feel it needs to be more specific."

"We cannot possibly know a viable endpoint without further information," stated Luna. "And discussion."

"We're a democracy," said Hermione ("Are we?" asked Ginny). "Let's vote. Who thinks we should go out there now and investigate?" Sirius raised his hand, and surprisingly so did Hermione. "Who wants to stay here and argue?" Luna raised hers.

"It isn't argue, so much as debate," she said. "And it's not that I don't want to go. The timing is wrong."

Ginny shrugged. "I want a piss," she said, "and a snack."

Hermione muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Weasleys."

Within half an hour, after Ginny had eaten half of the contents of the kitchen, and Sirius, who knew a good thing when he saw it, had joined her, they were out and about once more. They had seen more action in the last two weeks than they had for months, and it made Sirius feel alive once more. His wand was practically wobbling with excitement in his hand as he stashed it into the pocket of his jacket. he was almost skipping out to their favoured Apparition point in the back alley.

"No Dolohov?" asked Hermione, on arrival. She had her hand-knits back on and her coat zipped up to her chin.

"Nothing," said Ginny. She had taken the scout position again, her ginger hair slicked back into a ponytail. She was ankle deep in a puddle, but didn't appear to have noticed. Sirius adjusted his own position before he followed her down the small, muddy path towards their destination. His boots weren't waterproof, and he'd never bothered to learn the charms that would make them so.

It was half a mile down the path to the building, and Sirius felt every yard of it. Too many fucking branches taking up space on the path that ought to be clear, and too much fucking mud. He preferred it when the Death Eaters set up in a city. A town, at least.

They reached the hedge they'd been using as a lookout point, and the building loomed in front of them. It was a shack at best. The wooden sides showed all the telltale signs of abandonment, and the roof was in no better a state. Three windows graced the sides visible from the approach, and all of them were boarded up. The door, they knew from their surveillance, was around the back. Hermione had drawn a little diagram, and everything.

"What do you reckon?" asked Ginny.

"Try the door," said Sirius.

"Isn't that what they'd expect?" said Hermione, consulting her little diagram.

"They'll expect an attacker to avoid the door," said Sirius. "Which means there could be something even nastier on the windows."

Luna walked up to the building, her long purple skirt swishing as she did so, and began casting spells in its general direction.

"Let her get on with it," said Ginny, holding out her arm to stop Hermione going closer.

"Why didn't I think of that?" asked Hermione. Sirius didn't bother to answer. She seemed to be mostly talking to herself, anyway.

It didn't matter who thought of it, he thought, but he was glad somebody had. Breaking into heavily warded and well defended buildings was a bitch, even if there weren't any Death Eaters present. He'd rather not do it if he didn't have to.

But he knew enough of Hermione Granger to know that she'd be highly aggrieved that she hadn't thought of it. She prided herself on being a planner. On knowing what to do, and when. Sirius was more of the 'leap in and hope it doesn't go horrifically wrong' type. It usually did. Sirius was a fuck-up, and he was proud. When you were inevitably going to be something, you might as well be proud of it.

"I have checked everything that I can think of," said Luna, "and the building is undefended. We cannot go through the door, but the windows are clear, and so is everything else. We have options, as it were, and if we choose to use them."

"Excellent," said Ginny. "I vote windows."

"They're very high up," said Sirius.

"Are you a wizard, or not?" asked Hermione. "Come on, Sirius." She turned to him, her plait flipping behind her as she did so. "Unless you're scared."

"Never," he said, and joined Ginny in moving towards the building.

That wasn't entirely true, Sirius thought, as he watched Ginny creating a ladder to the largest of the windows by Transfiguring branches. He'd spent more than half his life, probably up to three quarters, being terrified of something. What varied. The Sorting Hat had told him bravery was facing your fears, and if you didn't have any you were not brave but deathly stupid. Well, that was Sirius' paraphrasing.

So he was mostly brave, and mostly scared.

This, however, was child's play. Breaking into an almost entirely unsecured building. With magic. How difficult could that be?

Ginny was at the top of the ladder. She climbed it without any difficulty, even though by Sirius' estimate she was about twelve feet into the air, and unlatched the window by magic. Looking at it, she then blasted the whole thing off its hinges with a well-aimed spell.

"Careful," said Hermione, her back to the building and her eyes casting around their surroundings.

"Am being," said Ginny.

"Use _hominum revelio_ ," reminded Luna.

Ginny leant into the building, waving her wand and muttering spells, while Luna pointed her wand at her skirt and began to shorten it for the climb.

Sirius was the last to enter the building, climbing the ladder and pulling himself to sit atop the window frame shortly after Hermione. He considered what to do with the ladder. Vanishing it would avoid it being spotted, keeping it would make their exit easier. He Vanished it, cast a cushioning charm beneath him, and jumped.

He landed in a large room, less far down than he had climbed up. So there were two levels to the building. Ginny and Hermione stood in the centre of the room, their wands lit. Luna was off poking around in some corner, no doubt. That would be exactly her style. It was be what the old Sirius would have been doing.

They were a funny little group, the four of them. Nothing like his old group, his Marauders. Too many girls. They had agreed to allow girls in if Harry had been one. He was a honorary Marauder, they had been debating his name at that 1980 Christmas lunch. 'Fawn' had been his working title. Sirius had been campaigning hard for 'Spots'.

"Sirius?" said Hermione. "We were talking to you."

"Yeah, I wasn't listening," he said.

"It looks like bedrooms," she repeated. "That's what we were saying."

"There's more," said Ginny, coming in from a corridor Sirius hadn't seen her enter. "Five, and two bathrooms. I haven't gone downstairs. Where's Luna?"

"Here," said Luna. "There's no personal things on any of the nightstands, and no toothbrushes or hair potions or anything in any of the bathrooms. If anyone lives here, they don't come very often."

"Or they have no personal effects and hate having baths," said Sirius. "You can't rule that out."

"You can't," said Hermione. Sirius was distracted again by her agreeing with him, which was so rare it was worth remarking on, and missed the rest of her sentence. She had her hair loose down her shoulders, and it framed her face.

"Shall we go downstairs, then?" asked Ginny. She had never sheathed her wand during the entire process. Sirius' was still in his jacket pocket. That was a poor decision. He pulled it out, and nodded.

Ginny led the procession down the stairs, Sirius again bringing up the rear. The house, if it was that, had been recently decorated. Not fancily, but the paint on the walls smelt fresh and there were no signs of any wear or tear on the furniture. Of course, things could be magically repaired and protected, but if you knew what to look for you could sense the magic that had been used on the objects. Strangely, the place was free of that magic.

Almost entirely free of magic, it felt like.

He stopped, halfway up the stairs, and used the same detection spells Luna had outside the house and a few others of his own. Nothing. Apart from some fairly nasty but standard curses guarding the doorway, absolutely no magic had been used on or in the making of this house.

"Hermione?" he said, the others out of sight. "There's no magical traces."

"I know," she said. "Luna checked."

"No," he repeated. "Absolutely nothing. Before we came here, the only magic that had been used is on the door."

"How do you know?" she asked.

"My mother taught me that no respectable pureblood should ever live in a place where no magic has already been cast," he said, drily. "It's amazing what you can learn from someone with so much prejudice. Sometimes, it's useful. Mostly, it isn't."

She pulled a funny face. "So that means," she said, slowly, "that this place was built by Muggles?"

"Or wizards without magic," he said, "but that's less likely. It's probably a Muggle house that Dolohov decided to take over."

"Think about what you just said," said Hermione. She reached out and ran her hands over the beige paint on the walls.

"Oh, Dolohov's a half-blood," he said, airily. "His father is a Muggleborn, believe it or not, and his mother is a witch from no great family. It's unlikely he'd have been taught this."

"Why do you know so much about him?"

"Again, my mother is a prejudiced, sour old cunt and she made me learn. I could tell you the blood status and family history of most families. All the ones she considered worth knowing, in order of worth, and all the ones she wanted us never to associate with. If we didn't know someone's blood status, any blood traitor tendencies and who everyone in their family is married to upon hearing their name, how would we know whether or not they were to be friends or enemies?" He watched her reaction carefully. "Dolohov's half-blood. I don't judge him for that, and obviously you can't predict everything about someone from the family they come from." He indicated himself. "But, you know, sometimes information is worth it."

"Okay," she said, "so we haven't necessarily ruled anything out there. What about the other man, the short man?"

"Since nobody has any idea who he is," said Sirius, thinking, "it's possible, too. Running with that, if it's been built without magic deliberately, for use by Death Eaters, why?"

"Not a clue," said Hermione with a sigh. "We'd better catch up with Ginny and Luna."

They followed the stairs, out into a downstairs hallway that connected with the door. There were no windows on the lower floor. That didn't massively make visibility any more difficult, as there hadn't been much light coming in through the small, dirty windows as the sun set, but it certainly added a challenge in Sirius' eyes. They had only two ways out, rather than several; up the stairs or through the cursed door. Hermione had noticed that too, and put her hand on Sirius' arm.

"I'll keep my wand light on," she said. "You're the defence."

"Aren't you faster?" he said.

"You've got better aim," she said.

The other change, he supposed, was that they were both more on edge with the slight increase in darkness and the decrease in ease of exit.

They made their way in turn through the rooms on the lower floor. Another bathroom, a small kitchen, a sitting room of sorts and two more bedrooms. The bedrooms were identical to those upstairs, beige painted walls, floorboards, and two sets of bunk beds with blue striped bedclothes. Ginny and Luna were in the second of the bedrooms, Luna having climbed to the top bunk. Sirius shut the door.

"Anything of interest?" asked Ginny.

Hermione pulled at the bedclothes on the closest lower bunk. "The duvet covers are Muggle made," she said. She showed Sirius a small, white label sewn into the inside of the cover. "See, it's from Woolworths. A Muggle shop," she clarified, at the look on everyone else's faces.

"Everything is Muggle," he said.

"The kitchen had an oven like the one in our house," said Ginny.

"There's someone outside," said Luna.

"It's probably a fox," said Sirius, "or something like that, isn't it?"

Luna leapt down from the upper bunk, landing neatly. "Oh, no, I think they're outside this room."

Sirius' pulse quickened, and he tightened his grip on his wand.

"Get out!" said Hermione, in a hissed whisper. "Apparate!" She twisted on the spot, and nothing happened.

Sirius tried, and in the corner of his eye he could see Ginny try, and nothing happened for them either.

"Anti-Apparition Jinx," said Sirius. He cast a non-verbal _Muffilato_. "Death Eaters used them all the time," he said, more quietly. "They might not know anyone's here, sometimes they used them as a precaution. But we weren't being exceptionally quiet, so they probably do know we're here. They have probably heard every word we've said, too."

He wasn't exactly happy, any more. Happy was the wrong word. But he was definitely feeling something, and that was by far better than feeling nothing. Even if that something was the rush that came with the potential of being dead soon. His hand shook on his wand, but it wasn't nerves. He was ready.

Hermione waved her wand at the door, silently. "There's one outside this room," she said. "Two more outside the building."

"Why aren't they coming in?" asked Ginny.

"Fucked if I know," said Sirius. "They've clearly got more self-control than I have."

He was itching to get out there, truth be told.

"Ginny, Luna," said Hermione, "run for the stairs. Sirius, cover them. I'll…"

"No," he said, firmly. "I'll go out first and take the Death Eater. You run past. Hermione, you can do the covering if you want, but I'm having the Death Eater." She didn't get to control everything. He needed to protect her, and all of them.

"Why?" she said.

"Because I've got better aim," he said. "And, besides, I'm the one with the least to lose."

"Sirius," said Hermione, with the tone of somebody who had a lot more to say.

"Shh," said Luna. "They'll be coming in any moment, I'm sure. We should retain the element of surprise while we still have it." She moved towards the door, beckoning Ginny along with her. "Thank you, Sirius, see you later."

Luna opened the door with a flick of her wand, and Sirius leapt into action. He vaguely felt the rush of the three women going past behind him as he threw as many offensive spells as he could think of at the Death Eater. It was dark, his visibility was shit, and conjuring lights would waste valuable seconds. He could only cast in the right direction, hope, and leap out of the way of any jets of light he saw come his way. Shield himself occasionally. It was next to impossible, he thought, as he rolled on the floor to avoid something that looked suspiciously like the Killing Curse. He had no obvious way to win this. He hadn't felt more alive in months.

" _Stupefy!"_ he shouted, twisting to his feet again. " _Confringo!"_

His spells were met with answering cries, and non-verbal spells. He swung out of the way of some tiny fireballs, leapt over a conjured tripwire, and ducked under some sort of blade. He kept his answering volley of spells up, flying every offensive spell he could think of in the direction of his opponent.

The Death Eater was grunting with the effort of keeping up the duel, and Sirius was feeling the pressure. They ought to do duelling practice, him and the girls. Keep their skills up and fresh. He ought to take up running, again, for fitness.

" _Gemino!_ " he shouted, to the sound of clattering.

He knew he was getting tired then, already. Using ridiculous spells in a duel was generally a sign.

He dived away from another Killing Curse, hit the floor with a thud, and then there was nothing.

The room he came to in was just as dark as the one he had left, but it wasn't the same one. This one had a floor made of mud, for starters. He pulled himself into a sitting position, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and began to check himself for injuries. There was what felt like wet blood in his eyebrows, and an obvious injury to his right shoulder, but thankfully nothing serious. He could heal all of that.

Hopefully, they would remain his only injuries.

As his eyes adjusted, he could tell that he was in a small, round room. The walls were stone, the floor the ground, and the top was open to the elements. It was a good thing it was a dry night. The sun had set now, which put it at anything from an hour or so after they'd entered the house to early morning. He doubted he'd been out the full twenty-four hours. He felt too mobile. He stretched his limbs, one by one, and got to his feet.

Sirius could only assume it was a Death Eater that had taken him into captivity, based on the information he had. He had assumed that was who had been duelling him. And, this wasn't how the Order held people. They held them at the spot, and called Moody or Frank or Alice Longbottom to come and officially make an arrest. Death Eaters had a motive for being in the house, because they were scheduled to have been yesterday. They didn't know what the motive was, but there was one somewhere in this.

He didn't know if they knew who he was.

He had no idea where exactly he was.

There would almost certainly be Anti-Apparition spells on this prison, and other wards. It was impossible to scale, either way, the walls were smooth and leant in on themselves.

In the room, he had a chamber pot, something Sirius had always fucking despised, a mattress made from straw, and a single blanket. He had no wand, and the fuckers for some reason had also taken his shoes.

Finishing his analysis of exactly what he knew, which wasn't much, Sirius decided there was no time like the present to start the fitness regime he'd thought about while duelling. He began with basic stretches, and for a lack of anything else to use as a base he worked his way through James' on-the-ground Quidditch drills as best he could.

Halfway through, it occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn't be too tired if someone came in.

Sleeping would have made him, well, too sleepy if someone came in, so he whiled away the time refining his memory of various happy things that had happened in his life. It was always a constructive way to spend his time. It reminded him of the point of what he was doing.

The stars were well and truly out by the time someone came in to see Sirius. He was lying flat on his back on the straw mattress, having dragged it into the centre for the room, and was looking at himself in the night sky. His father was visible too. He might be the brightest star, but his father had a whole fucking constellation. That was just greedy.

Andromeda had a constellation, too, but that was different. He liked Andromeda.

"Good evening," said a masked and cloaked man standing above him. A Death Eater, if he had ever seen one before.

Sirius got up. "Good evening," he said, sticking out his right hand.

The Death Eater looked at him with distaste.

"You will not fuck around," he said. "You will tell me what you were doing this evening."

"No, I don't think I will," said Sirius. "Not unless you tell me who you are, and where you've put me."

He crossed his arms, expecting a dose of the Cruciatus Curse. It didn't come. Instead, he was delivered a swift kick to the balls.

"Fuck," said Sirius, doubling over.

"Who are you?" said the Death Eater. They had no discernible accent to their voice, and so Sirius decided that it couldn't have been Dolohov. His voice had always been strongly accented, and he was sure he was taller than this man.

"What does it matter?" asked Sirius. "Why are you keeping me in this fucking prison?"

"Who are you?" they asked again.

"Not saying," said Sirius, earning himself a further kick to the balls. It was a fucking good job he had no desire to father children, with this treatment. He would have to come up with a decent plan, soon. He was either stupid, or even more arrogant than he realised, because he hadn't bothered to do that when he was alone in the cell. The half-arsed plan had been 'not say anything, escape when Death Eater enters', except he had failed to see how they arrived.

"Do you even have a wand?" he said, opting for the plan of 'goad them into doing something stupid and see if you can use it to your advantage'. "Can't you even use magic to get answers out of me." He hauled himself upright. "What's with the mask?"

"You are stupider than you look," spat the Death Eater. "You have a wand, and Muggle clothing, and you don't know what it is that I stand for?"

"I don't have a wand any more, do I?" said Sirius. "Fucking taken it, haven't you?"

"Let us try a different approach," said the man. Sirius felt the twinge of Legilimency against his brain. This was something he should have anticipated. He'd had a lot of experience with Legilimency, and was able to identify its use quickly, which gave him an advantage against it. Unfortunately, his disadvantage was that he was shit at Occulmency. His mother had tried to teach him, and he'd been awful and Regulus had been perfect. They'd taught them in the Order, and Peter and Remus had been perfect. James at least had been almost as terrible as Sirius, and so Sirius adopted what he liked to call the James Potter Occulmency Technique. Instead of allowing the Death Eater access to wherever he liked, he began to slowly and torturously re-enact Quidditch matches he'd played in his head.

Of course, a skilled Legilimens could push that aside, and a mediocre but forceful one could get round it, too. Most of the time in Sirius' experience, it made the Legilimens so fucking frustrated with you that they resorted back to magical or physical torture, which Sirius could handle.

"I see you have experience with Occulmency," said the Death Eater.

"With what?" asked Sirius

"Are you with the Order of the Phoenix?"

"No."

"You are not lying."

"No, of course I'm not."

Sirius had to be careful here, then. It seemed the Death Eater couldn't or was unwilling use the necessary force to push into Sirius' brain past the Quidditch replays, but had enough skill and awareness to spot truth. He forced himself to think Quidditch again as the next question came from the man's mouth.

"Do you know who the Order of the Phoenix are?"

"I heard a mention of them in the newspapers." That was just omitting facts, not lying. This man needed to learn to ask better questions.

"Who were the others?"

"My friends."

"The truth. Well done. You are getting the hang of this."

"Who are you?"

"I like poking around places."

"That is not an answer, but it is not untrue. What is your name?"

 _He swung back the Beater's bat and hit the Bludget straight at the Slytherin Chaser, and it hit him square in the middle of the back. He dropped the Quaffle and…_

"William Smith."

… _the Gryffindor Chaser caught it and threw it to another, and they aimed for goal, and, shit, the Slytherin Keeper…_

"Blood status."

… _caught it and threw it back to the Slytherin Chaser he'd hit, and they passed it on, and there was a scream from the stands, the Slytherin Seeker was diving…_

"Muggleborn."

"What does a dirty Mudblood want digging around here? What did you think you would find?"

"I told you, I like poking around places." Sirius gambled. "Don't call me Mudblood, fucking git."

" _Crucio!"_

Sirius had barely time to think that this was more like it when he hit the floor in the familiar pain of the Cruciatus Curse. This he could handle. He shouted into the pain, as his body folded in on itself and burst open, both at the same time. The pain stopped. He was still on his feet, if scrunched over slightly in the middle, and he hadn't vomited or worse.

"Know how to take that, do you?"

"Was that an Unforgivable?" Of course he knew how to fucking take it, but he wasn't letting this bastard see that memory.

Different Death Eaters used the Cruciatus for different purposes. Bellatrix liked suffering. It made Legilimency easier, some liked that. It produced the truth from some people just by itself. Sirius Black was an expert at taking the pain of the Cruciatus Curse, and he would not give away anything while under its effects. Another useful lesson from his mother, although probably not the one she'd intended.

"You are William Smith?"

"Yes," he said, thinking of Quidditch.

"What are the names of the people who were with you?"

"What have you done with them?" He didn't dare think their names. Fucking hell, he hoped they were safe. He hoped they were home, and not in another prison like this.

"I ask the questions, Smith."

"Who are you to be so demanding of me?"

That earned him another round of the Cruciatus, as he'd thought it would. It was comforting that this Death Eater seemed to be as predictable as the others he had met. They must be given a book on how to be predictable as fuck in their torture devices. He crumbled to the floor, every part of his body on fire, and tore at his foot in the hope of pulling it off and making at least one part of his body at peace. He would give almost anything for the pain to stop, but not his secrets.

He was on the floor when the pain stopped, clutching his left foot.

"Do you ever scream?" muttered the Death Eater.

"No," said Sirius. It was something of a point of pride.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" hissed the Death Eater, aiming a swift kick at Sirius. It connected with his head, then two more with his sides, and Sirius scrunched himself into a ball to protect his testicles. The world spun for a moment, and he was certain a rib was broken.

Think of Quidditch, he thought to himself.

Don't think of anything that could identify you.

The Cruciatus Curse was almost getting a little bit boring now. The pain was still fucking horrific, and left him unable to think rationally, but it faded reasonably quickly. He never pissed himself. Most people did. Or worse. Sirius had seen stronger men than he shit themselves under its influence. Again, he'd need to thank his mother for that, he supposed.

"Getting bored of this, are you?" asked the Death Eater. "Why does it not touch you like it does others, I wonder?"

"High pain threshold," said Sirius. He rolled over and sat up. Definitely a broken rib. If not two.

"I will break you if I choose," said the Death Eater. "There is no doubt about that."

"Like fuck you will," said Sirius. He made what he thought was probably going to be a terrible decision, and leapt forwards from his sitting position at the Death Eater's legs, pulling them down to the floor and swiftly punching them in their own balls. His wand fell to the floor, and Sirius made to grab for it.

The Death Eater fought back, kicking out at Sirius. Sirius' fingertips just about reached to the wand, and he kicked at the Death Eater and wrapped his hand around the wand. Before he could raise it, the Death Eater launched at him and knocked it flying. Both of them scrabbled for it across the ground, legs and arms making frequent contact with one another as they raced.

Sirius was slightly slower. The Death Eater grabbed the wand and blasted Sirius across the room, where he flopped against the wall of the prison with his feet somehow above his head and the warm trickle of blood falling down his face.

"I do not know who you think you are," said the Death Eater, who was also bleeding from the hairline and had their left arm held awkwardly across their body. The wand was clutched firmly in their right hand, the sign of victory. "But I do not think I wish you to live much longer."

The Death Eater held out their wand, Sirius flew up in the air once more, hit the wall again, and the whole world went dark for the second time that evening.


	23. Chapter 23: To Be The Heir

**Chapter Twenty Three: To Be The Heir**

 _Regulus_

 _December 1978, Grimmauld Place, London_

The winter party season had started tonight, and Regulus Black was more than ready for it.

Anyone who was anyone came home from Hogwarts for the Christmas break and took one night to spend with their family before the rounds of pre-Christmas social engagements began. Hogwarts was stifling these days, and Regulus longed for the company of men who were closer to his equal than the boys he shared a common room with at Hogwarts. The parties could be dull, especially the larger ones, but there was usually good conversation and decent wine to be had. And, of course, as the finest example of a young heir to a fortune, Regulus knew all the right people.

The Black Christmas party was always the first, befitting their rank as one of the oldest, richest, and most influential families in wizarding Britain. Term finished on Friday, and the Blacks hosted on Saturday night. The Malfoy Christmas party fell on Christmas Eve, and between those the smaller families vied for position. It was important to plan your strategy carefully there. Attending one of those parties implied favour, and that was something to be given carefully. Some nights, it was by far preferable to stay at home.

After Christmas, one could attend the Boxing Day soiree at Hambleton Hall, ably hosted by Bellatrix, if one was lucky enough to be accorded an invite. Some more smaller occasions, and then the glittering finale of the New Years Eve Ball at the Fawley's. Regulus was particularly looking forward to that one. His first major event at his fiancee's house.

Tonight, the family party would double as his engagement event. Adeline would dazzle and charm, he was sure. She was a beautiful girl, sweet-natured and interesting, and both she and her mother had an eye for a flattering cut of outfit. Demure, of course, as befitting his future bride, but she was bound to turn heads. He would dress simply, perhaps the dark grey silk that complimented his eyes and would not clash with anything she may have chosen. Regulus' mother always had a photographer in attendance, and frequently a magazine or the Daily Prophet's society pages. It would not do to clash.

Regulus was pondering the merits of owling Adeline to check the colour of her outfit, so as to plan to coordinate, when his mother rapped at the door.

"Regulus, my dear, the caterers have arrived, would you be so kind as to chaperone them? Your father is busy in his study, of course, and I've got an appointment with my hair-witch that I just cannot miss."

"Of course, mother dearest," replied Regulus. The dark grey silk would do. Overly coordinating was try-hard, something for the lower families.

He barely had time to greet Adeline on her arrival before they were both subsumed into the greater swell of people at the party. Anyone who was anyone attended, and then many more who were nobody in particular at all. Regulus posed for a photograph for the Daily Prophet's photographer, spoke at length to Abraxas Malfoy, who was insistent on giving Regulus career advice, and listened to drunken Uncle Cygnus complain about the many failures of his cousin Andromeda. Across the room, his mother was with a circle of her friends, no doubt bitching about some of the other women in attendance. They always were. He hoped Adeline was not prone to bitching, it was so unbecoming.

"Regulus, my boy, a beautiful party, simply superb." Professor Slughorn clapped Regulus on the back as he made his way up to him, a goblet of the elf-made wine in his other hand. Regulus took the opportunity to extract himself from Cygnus, who had moved onto his disappointment that neither Bellatrix or Narcissa had yet produced a child. "And congratulations, of course, Miss Fawley is an excellent prospect for you. You'll do well together. Very complimentary characters, and both of course excellent students."

"Thank you, sir, that's very kind of you. I'm pleased you could make it." Regulus nodded to acknowledge Avery entering the drawing room, before turning back to the conversation with his Head of House. "Please do help yourself to refreshments. There's some exceptional cheeses, and a very excellent port that accompanies them perfectly."

"Thank you, my dear boy, always interested in a good port," said Slughorn. "Aha! Is that old Mannion Carrow over there? I've got to go and say hello, Regulus, if you don't mind?"

Regulus shook his head. A breather would be pleasant. These parties, they were stimulating, but there was such a thing as too many conversations too quickly. He took a walk through the house out into the gardens. A moment and some air, and he would be ready to resume his duties as the young heir and new fiance.

He would have a small wedding ceremony, Regulus decided. No doubt Madame Fawley and his mother would be planning a large, ostentatious reception, with everyone either of them have ever wished to impress, but the ceremony should be under a hundred people. He supposed he wouldn't have to invite Sirius, or Andromeda, her Mudblood, and her half-blood brat. Under eighty would be impossible, though. Adeline had chosen eleven bridesmaids already, including her two small nieces.

"The Dark Lord is arriving shortly," said Avery, cutting through Regulus' thoughts. "He will wish you to be present in the room. He does not intend to stay long."

"Thank you, Avery." Socially, Regulus was considered to be above Avery. His family was almost as rich as the Blacks, but plagued with scandal and prone to making marriages far below their status. Rumours continued to abound that Avery's mother had consorted with a werewolf prior to her marriage, and his youngest sister was said to be a bastard old Mr Avery had fathered on his secretary. However, within the Dark Lord's circle, Avery ranked higher. Regulus was a new initiate, and not yet considered to have sufficiently proved himself. He would rise in time, Regulus was sure of it. His blood already put him higher than other fresh recruits.

"Oh, and Selwyn says he needs you later. Good luck with that one. He's hoping you'll dig him out of some hole as far as I can tell."

"I will do what I can, if it is the Dark Lord's business."

"Who knows what it is. How's the fiancee?" asked Avery.

"She is well," replied Regulus. "Enjoying swapping beauty advice with my dear cousin, the last I saw of her. You know Narcissa Malfoy, of course? So many here wanting to discuss matters with me, I have barely had time to attend to Adeline properly tonight. I must do so, before our Lord arrives."

"Certainly," said Avery. "We wouldn't want the match threatened."

"It is in no danger," said Regulus, snapping his fingers for Kreacher to refill his goblet. "She has a strong rebuke, however, and I prefer to follow what I know is expected of me."

"I hope she's worth it," grinned Avery. "Mother's been on at me to find a wife. Can't say I'm interested, witches are far more fun when you don't have to marry them."

"Marriage has its benefits," said Regulus as the two wizards made their way back through the throng of the party. "And you have the luxury of brothers. I do not."

"Fair point," said Avery. "Did you hear about Dolohov and Jugson?"

"Yes," said Regulus. "Dolohov has always been showy, it is no surprise that he was injured. It will teach him to make better choices under attack. And Jugson may well be better off dead. The man had no sense, and he was a danger to our cause."

"You'd think that you'd feel sorry for them, as they're one of your own now."

"I value intelligence and competence, Avery, and I think we can achieve far more as a smaller and better group than we can as a large one containing less desirable elements. I had thought anyone who affiliated themselves in our cause would be a believer in that."

"Once again, Black, you have a point." Avery smiled. "And this is where I leave you." He disappeared into the crowd as he and Regulus reached Adeline and Narcissa.

"Ladies," said Regulus, turning to his cousin and his fiancee. "May I fetch you anything? Drinks? Food? One of the miniature cakes? I hear they are sublime."

"Oh, no, your adorable house-elf is keeping us more than comfortable," said Adeline. Regulus thought the formal edge to her voice was fading lately. He was certain she hadn't used it before their engagement, although he admitted his conversations with her had been limited. He had been rather fixated on someone else for much of sixth year, and prior to this engagement.

"I am comfortable too," said Narcissa. "Adeline is lovely, Regulus. She will be a perfect wife for you." Adeline blushed heavily at this, and Regulus smiled. He was pleased with his choice.

"Ah, Master Black" came a low, silky voice. "I had hoped to find you on my arrival, and here you are."

"I always aim to please, my Lord," said Regulus, bowing low as he turned to face the Dark Lord. "Has the party been to your liking?"

"I am freshly arrived," said the Dark Lord. "And most anxious to meet the family of my brightest new recruit."

"I thank you for your words, my Lord," said Regulus. "My Lord, this is my fiancee, Miss Adeline Fawley, the daughter of Alpherton and Evangeline Fawley. We are celebrating our engagement, tonight, and there will of course be a small ritual within the next hour to cement the bonds between our two families. She is a lovely woman, and I am most proud to be welcoming her into the Black family as soon as I can persuade her father to let her go. And, you know Mrs Narcissa Malfoy, wife to Lucius Malfoy, of course."

"I do, and I am charmed to see you here Mrs Malfoy." The Dark Lord bent to kiss her hand, and turned on to Adeline. "And I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Fawley. I do not believe I know anyone in your family, but you are from a fine one, and Regulus never rests from making sure your reputation as a lady of good birth and strong magic precedes you."

Adeline looked to Regulus, and he offered her an encouraging smile. She stood and made a small curtsey as the Dark Lord kissed her on the hand, and Regulus smiled again. She would make a fine bride. He had known she would, of course.

"And how soon do you believe your father will allow you to be wed?" the Dark Lord asked of Adeline.

"My mother is keen for me to complete my education before I make the marriage vows," said Adeline, not taking her eyes away from the Dark Lord's face. She held a steady gaze, and Regulus was proud. The Dark Lord was not an easy man to look in the eye. He would not have risen to the heights he had if he was. "My father is allowing her to make that representation to Regulus' family." She drew herself to her full height. "I would prefer to marry as soon as is possible. I wish for babies and for marriage, not for examination results written on parchment. I will learn my most valuable magics in this house, not at a school."

"Well said," said the Dark Lord, and Regulus knew Adeline had pleased him. "You will be a fine match for a fine man. And now you must excuse us, my ladies. I wish for some of Regulus' time tonight, as to my sorrow I cannot stay long. I am a busy man, and I desire to meet with Regulus' parents before I take my leave."

"Certainly," said Regulus, and nodded to Narcissa before taking Adeline's hand for a goodbye kiss.

He moved off through the crowd, the Dark Lord at his side. The crowd had parted for Regulus before, as a host of the party and the young heir of the house, but it did so more easily for the Dark Lord. Many here were followers as Regulus himself was, or aspired to join. The rest at least knew the value of his work, even if they themselves had not yet found it within them to join. Regulus was sure they would, in time. It was becoming more clear than ever that to have a place in the new world he was creating these men would need to join. They could not expect roles, titles and honour if they had not been a part of the creation.

"Regulus, may we have a word, in private, before you make my introductions to your fine parents?" asked the Dark Lord, as they entered the corridor.

"Certainly, my Lord." Regulus led him into his mother's parlour, which had been closed off for the evening's festivities. It was a room that was not to Regulus' taste; more flounce and frippery than the strong lines, hardwoods, and tasteful silver that Regulus preferred. But it was his mother's, and as such, her right to decorate however she saw fit. His hand shook slightly on the doorknob as he closed the door and flicked his wand to lock it. He had never been granted a private audience with the Dark Lord, and it was an honour. He only hoped that he could acquit himself as well as he would wish to.

"I have heard from many sources that you have performed admirably on your limited trips away from your schooling so far, and that you have provided me with exceptional services within the school. For that, I thank you. However, I have heard from Bellatrix that despite your willingness to cast the Killing Curse at some scum, you have not yet made the kill. Not your fault, of course. You can blame that former brother of yours. Is that correct?"

"Yes, my Lord," said Regulus, lowering his head. He had failed that evening.

"It is of no matter," said the Dark Lord. "Regulus, I do not want you to feel as though you have failed me in this. You will try again. Soon, if it can be arranged. I know it is difficult for you to make it free of the Hogwarts boundaries without your position as a spy being compromised, so I hope to have this achieved before you return to the school. Avery will provide you with details. Now, I desire information from you. What have you discovered of the actions of Albus Dumbledore since your last report to Avery?"

Regulus swelled with pride. He had not failed the Dark Lord. He was trusted with the difficult job of recruiter and spy, under the nose of the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, and he would continue to make the Dark Lord proud. He would kill, when he was asked, because this was of the utmost importance. He outlined in as much detail as he could recall of the movements of Albus Dumbledore, and he promised to report to Avery with increased frequency on his return.

"Regulus," said the Dark Lord, as they left the parlour, "do consider marrying that girl as soon as you can. I fear you will need to before she finishes her schooling, and aside from the need, it would most please me if you did. You are our sole hope, Regulus, to protect against another noble family's disappearance from the soil."

Regulus went back into the crush of the party on a high, and took pleasure in making the introductions between his Dark Lord and his parents. Mother was charmed, and Father impressed by his strength of conviction. The Dark Lord promised to stay for the binding ritual, to be performed at ten o'clock exactly.

His mother gathered the crowds together, and Regulus took a moment in the hallway for composure. He was to comport himself properly. Adeline's family would be most unimpressed if the groom was a shaking, flustered mess at the formal pledging.

"Master Regulus," said Kreacher, appearing at his elbow. "Mistress is wanting you now. Mistress is ready, Master Regulus, and soon to be Missy too."

"Thank you, Kreacher," said Regulus, bending to address the elf respectfully. "I will be along now."

"You will, Master Regulus, you be along now."

Regulus walked into the room, and took his place in the centre alongside his mother and his father. The circle of witches and wizards closed around him, a circle of almost everyone who mattered in the wizarding world. Representatives of every family within the circle of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, except for the blood-traitor families of Weasleys and Shafiqs, and the rising families too. The Dark Lord stood with Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, an indulgent smile just for Regulus on his face. Bellatrix and Rabastan were beside them, and his grandfather Pollux and Uncle Cygnus as the representatives of the Black family.

Adeline's family were arrayed alongside them, and friends of both of them and of their families. Regulus caught sight of Selwyn, a fresh cut healing along the top of his forehead, and his parents, siblings and grandmother. The Carrows were there, annoyingly. Severus Snape had merited an invitation at Regulus' urging. The Macmillans, the Averys, a handful of the numerous Shacklebolt family, a singular Bones.

Regulus turned to his mother. "Is everything as it should be?" he asked.

"Certainly," said his mother.

Adeline entered the circle, in the traditional robes of a bride-to-be attending their pledging. The long plum coloured robes were held up at the back by the requisite two unmarried women, allowing her entry into the circle. They symbolised the support of her female friends and relations, without which she would fall.

"And so we begin," said Arcturus. As the eldest male of Regulus' family, he presided tonight. "We have two souls before us tonight. The blood of the magical gift runs freely in both of them. We have Master Regulus Arcturus Black, of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. We have Miss Adeline Calla Evangeline Fawley, of the strong and lasting line of Fawley. We have their family and friends, to bear witness to this event."

"Tonight," Arcturus continued, waving his wand high above the circle, "we come to pledge the hearts and hands of this witch and this wizard, and we come to join the bloodlines and the families as one. They will bind their lives, their magics, and their blood, and we will bind ourselves to the support of their union. Who gives this witch to the pledge?"

"That is I, Alpherton Stonard Ralphus Fawley, of the strong and lasting line of Fawley." Adeline's father stepped forwards, taking his daughter's hand. She stood with her head bowed, in the centre of the circle, as he came to join her. Her long hair fell loose around her face, the circlet the Black family used for such bindings sitting atop her head. She was truly beautiful, and Regulus was pleased they had forgone the traditional heavy veil. The world should see the beauty he was pledging himself to marry, he thought. She deserved to be seen.

"Who here supports this man, in his duty to his pledged?" This should have been Sirius, Regulus thought with a pang. The eldest brother of a man should stand with him, or all the brothers if it was chosen, or a male cousin. Regulus had had a brother once. His brother had chosen to leave, and Regulus could no longer see him as such. He was blood but he was no brother. Sirius should have been here, but he was not, and it was another thing that he had ruined for Regulus with his selfish behaviour.

Regulus had not wanted to be the heir. He wanted the marriage. He wanted the children. He had not wanted to have to lead the family. Yet here he was.

And as such he would be the one to save it.

In the absence of anybody, Lucius Malfoy had been chosen to step up beside Regulus. A cousin-in-law, and a worthy man. "That is I," said Lucius, smoothly. "Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, of the noble house of Malfoy, and wed to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black through my beautiful wife Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black."

"And so that shall be," said Pollux. "I ask you to clasp hands, Master Black and Miss Fawley." Regulus took the three strides to the centre of the circle, and took Adeline's hand from that of her father. He nodded to the older man as he did so. Respect was due to the father of the girl you wished to marry. They were the one who could prevent the match, even after this ceremony.

"Mr Fawley," continued Pollux. "The rod. Mr Malfoy, the globe."

Lucius held the globe out, and Regulus guided Adeline's hands to it. The sphere of glass swirled beneath them, showing predominantly red and purple, flickers of gold and blue. That was a good omen, Regulus knew. He knew enough of the portents of the pledging globe, but it was the women's role to know them all.

"A strong and lasting marriage," said the first of Adeline's women friends, her sister Avabelle. "And strong children, many children. That is the red, and that is the purple. There will be clashes, my lady and my lord, that is the gold, but there is little enough of that they will be over quickly. The blue shows the sadness. What comes will be soon, but it will not last. There is a turning point in your marriage, my lady and my lord, and if you can survive that you will survive anything at all."

"We know this to be true from the powers vested in us as our lady's support," said the other, Opal Greengrass, who he recognised as Adeline's friend. "We will do what is in our power to protect the good in this portent and to prevent the bad."

"I thank you," said Arcturus. "All of us will act to protect this pledge, and the marriage bond that will result from it. We are within the circle, and we are the circle. In the name of the Black family and in the name of the Fawley family, I cast the spells of pledging and of binding.

"I cast the first on all of us. I cast the spell of support and of watchfulness, of help and of care."

Arcturus raised his wand high over the circle once more, and the net of silver captured the guests in a warm, fuzzy glow. Regulus felt the power of the spell enter him, and he was tempted to steal a glance at the room. As instructed, however, he kept his eyes on his Adeline, and she kept hers lowered to the globe.

"Thank you, Mr Malfoy," said Arcturus, and Lucius removed the globe. "I cast the next spell on Miss Fawley. Mr Fawley, the rod." The long golden rod was passed to Arcturus, and from there to Adeline.

"I cast the spell of faithfulness, of fealty, of the giving of heart, mind, and body to your intended husband. This spell will hold until your marriage, or until one year from this date. It may not be broken, except by the will of your father." Adeline was bathed in a silver light, and she had never looked more beautiful.

"I cast our third and final spell on Master Black. I cast the spell of protectiveness, of guardianship and of provision for your intended wife."

Regulus felt the warmth of the spell once more, but was focusing on his role and paid little attention. When the spell faded, he took his cue. "In the name of my family, my blood and my magic, I so do pledge myself to you. I am Regulus Arcturus Black, and I will bond myself to you in marriage when the time comes, and keep my promises in the meantime." He looked into Adeline's eyes as he said it, and she held his gaze.

"In the name of my family, my blood and my magic, I so do pledge myself to you," she said in return. She looked him in the eye, and her voice was strong and calm. She was the perfect wife. "I am Adeline Calla Evangeline Fawley, and I will bond myself to you in marriage when the time comes, and keep my promises in the meantime."

This time, the magic came from inside them, the spells Arcturus had cast over them leaping out to join and to celebrate above them with a burn of golden light. They sealed it with a kiss; a peck on the lips, anything more would be improper. And then she gave a squeeze to his hand, and he returned it, and the circle shot the traditional spells over their heads in celebration of the pledge.

Regulus, as was expected of him, turned his intended in a circle to show her to the assembled crowd. Some people decried these traditions. They were seen as vulgar, showy, old-fashioned or by some modernising types as unfair to the woman. The Ministry saw them as unnecessary, and held no differentiation for couples that had been pledged over those that had not. But Regulus understood the importance of the old rituals, of the pledging in front of society, and he was pleased that he had done this tonight.

He spent much of the next hour lost in congratulations. The world and their dog seemed to want to press their hand into his and shake it, or kiss his cheeks if they were female, and repeat the polite platitudes one said to a man who had just been formally pledged. Regulus enjoyed it for a time, but he felt he was here for discussion, not pretty words. He could get enough of those at Hogwarts.

Finally, someone he actually wished to see sought him out. Francis Macmillan sidled up, sticking out his hand to Regulus.

"Thought I'd say congratulations," he said. "It's nice to see the old ceremony used. They are what you believe they are, of course."

"Thank you. And of course," said Regulus. "I would not have considered anything else."

"No, all about doing things the right way, aren't you, Regulus? The family approve of the match, I see. As they would. She is a perfect pureblood wife. Bet you can't wait for the kids."

"I'm certainly looking forward to children," said Regulus. "I have considered to name the firstborn boy after my father."

"Bet you get six girls," said Francis. "My mother says if you count your dragons before they're hatched, they'll be fire-breathing chickens."

"That was not how I understood the saying to go," said Regulus, stifling a laugh.

"You've not met my mother," said Francis. "She's not how you expect a pureblood wife to go."

"Perhaps not," said Regulus. "I should like to meet her."

"I've got something else in mind for you," said Francis, with a broad grin.

Regulus allowed Francis to lead him out of the formal reception rooms and upstairs, into a guest bedroom on the first floor. The room was rarely used, and contained two iron-framed beds and several large landscape paintings which dominated the flock-papered walls.

"I wonder if I can guess," said Regulus, matching Francis' grin.

"Oh yeah?" asked Francis, pushing Regulus backwards onto the wall, narrowly missing a landscape of the French countryside, and pushing his lips into Regulus'.

This was no pledging ritual peck on the lips, this was the real thing. It was full-blooded and hungry, the way Francis' lips moved on his and the way Regulus responded in time. He pulled his arms free and threw them around Francis' back, and the other man's hands disappeared into his short hair and tugging at his dress robes.

"Don't rip them, for the love of Merlin, they are hand-embroidered silk," said Regulus.

"You'll replace them, no doubt," said Francis, with a smirk. "I've never seen you wear the same pair twice."

And Regulus found he no longer cared all that much for the dress robes when Francis' lips were back on his. He pushed at the other man, driving his tongue into his mouth, and they fell backwards onto the nearer of the beds with a soft thump, still locked together at the mouth. Francis tasted of the things Regulus loved so much, of firewhisky and freedom and the chance to make his own choices. The things he could never admit to his parents, but desired nonetheless.

Francis reached up and pulled Regulus' robes from him in one swoop, throwing them behind to the floor.

"As good as ever," he said, running his hands in through Regulus' undershirt and feeling the skin below. "You are the most beautiful thing I've seen."

"As are you," said Regulus. "Allow me to see you."

"Lazy bastard," said Francis, pulling his robes from his body and divesting himself of his own undershirt. Regulus drank in the sight, of the pale hairs decorating Francis' chest and the outline of the muscle underneath. He met Francis' lips again, then went down dotting kissed along the line of his jaw, his neck and onto his chest, revelling in the warmth of the familiar skin. Francis pawed at Regulus' shirt, pulling at each button in turn until it hung open and Regulus allowed his arms to fall back and the shirt to come away from his body.

"As good as ever," said Francis.

"As are you."

Francis pushed Regulus from on top of him, and pulled at the buckle to his belt.

"Careful," warned Regulus. "The party is ongoing."

"Fuck the party," said Francis. He flicked his wand at the door, once, twice, three times. "They won't know we're here."

"I would rather you fucked me," said Regulus, feeling the thrill of the words as he said them. He would never get used to saying things like that. He had not been raised this way. He had been raised to go to Adeline and look after her, to let her go home at the end of the night, and to respect her during their long engagement. He had not been raised to have sex with another man during a pureblood party.

He wanted to, though.

"I love it when you swear," said Francis, throwing Regulus' belt to the floor. "Say it again." He was undoing Regulus' trousers now.

"Fuck me," said Regulus, and he was standing in his underwear in a room in his own house with Francis Macmillan semi-naked in front of him, and his cock was standing to attention. He wanted this, more than he wanted almost anything else.

They had never done anything this daring, never on a bed in a house. It was always secluded corners of Hogwarts, where very few others ever came. Never the same place twice in a row, and new places as frequently as they could find safe ones. It was never naked. Never a regular pattern. But it had been there for two years now, and Regulus did not know if he could give it up.

For Adeline, he might.

"Come on," said Francis, who was not completely naked. "If you want to be fucked, let me fuck you."

Regulus allowed himself to be pushed down onto the bed, Francis over him behind. "Please," he said, softly. "Do it."

"Patience," said Francis, and reached down to prepare Regulus, and it was almost longer than Regulus could bear before he was in him, and they were fucking, and this was the way it was supposed to be. Regulus almost did not care what his family thought, he almost did not want to marry Adeline, he almost wished that this could be how it was for his life. Him, and Francis.

Once it was over, and they had cleaned themselves, and they were dressing again, Francis looked at him with a fixed look that bore no resemblance to his gleeful smiles of earlier.

"How long do we have?" he asked of Regulus.

"What do you mean?"

"You pledged yourself to a witch tonight," said Francis. "Don't tell me she will accept this, because she won't. She will be forced to allow it, no doubt about that, but you will be dooming your marriage."

"Let it be doomed," said Regulus, but the confidence of earlier had deserted him. He did not want to doom his marriage. To do that would be to doom himself, and his family, and all that he was working for.

"You don't mean that," said Francis. "I know you by now. I know what matters to you, and yes, it's me, but it's a hell of a lot of other things as well, Regulus. I've seen what's on your arm, and I don't know what he thinks of people like us, but I doubt it's positive things. I know what most of his followers would say. You're meant to make pureblood babies, not fuck men."

"People like us?"

"Gays, Regulus."

"I'm not…"

"Perhaps not. I am. And you're fucking a man, so…"

"I am marrying Adeline," said Regulus, stiffly, "because it is what I must do. I must uphold my family. I am the only one who can. I must right society to where it is supposed to be, because who will stand up for the wizarding world if I will not?"

"Oh, everyone else," said Francis. "Look, Regulus. I'm fine with this, for now, but I don't want to fuck a married man. I don't want the drama of it. I know what you are, and I still want to fuck you, but don't forget the rest of you, too." He nodded to Regulus' arm as he spoke. Regulus pulled his robe down over his head and over the Mark that adorned his forearm. He was not ashamed, but there was something in the way Francis was watching it.

"This is what I am," said Regulus. "There is no rest of me. I am the heir to the Black family, and I have responsibilities that correspond with that, and I am not going to abandon them! I will not be like Sirius, Francis!"

"Calm," said Francis, fully dressed and looking completely as if nothing had ever happened. "You're nothing like your brother. He was a fucking disaster if I ever saw one, and you've got morals. Just let those morals guide you, yeah, and not your family. We'd better leave the room separately. Mother wanted to leave straight after the pledging, so I'll be gone. Floo me, or something, or I'll see you at Hogwarts."

Regulus was left in the room alone, adjusting his dress robes. Of course he was intending to follow his morals. They meshed with those of his family almost entirely. He would protect his family's honour, and with the help of Adeline ensure that the line continued. He would protect their interests, and those of the good in the wizarding world, by serving the Dark Lord. And it wasn't unheard of to combine that with a relationship with another man. He knew the family history as well as anyone. Grandfather Pollux almost certainly had, and he was a well respected family patriarch. The first Regulus, too. It happened, and as long as they remained discrete Regulus was certain that it held no conflict.

He stepped out to rejoin the party. He needed to catch Selwyn, after all, and get the story of why he had been bleeding. It would be a good one, it always was with Selwyn. And he ought to thank Lucius for stepping up for him tonight, and find Mr and Mrs Fawley to thank them once again for the hand of their daughter. And of course check the comfort of the unattended women, as was his role, and, well, he had quite the list of tasks to complete.

He had absolutely no qualms in his roles, and he knew what was expected of him. He knew what was permitted, and what he wished, and the two aligned provided he was careful. He had the favour of a beautiful fiancee, and happy portents for their marriage. He had the favour of the Dark Lord. He had Francis.

Yes, Regulus Black had a nice life, and he would keep it so.

"Ah, Regulus," said his mother. "Would you be a dear and just see Madame Goyle to the door? She appears to have imbibed far beyond her limits, and I can't stand the woman."

It was a nice life, despite some of the expectations.


	24. Chapter 24: Stuck

**Chapter Twenty Four: Stuck**

 _Sirius_

 _December 1978, undisclosed location_

Floating.

Somewhere, in the air.

Or not on the air, because his back was wet.

Unless it was a cloud.

Yes, he was on a cloud.

Floating high in the sky.

Spinning.

Oh, he did not like spinning.

This was making him feel as though he did not belong in the sky.

And he did.

He was Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

He belonged in the sky.

But the spinning could stop.

The black was coming.

He didn't like that.

No, not the dark.

He screamed.

No sound.

No fucking sound.

And it was all dark.

He awoke, and Sirius sat himself up bolt upright and screamed.

Where the fuck was he? What was this?

Shit.

Memories began to piece themselves back together, and Sirius could understand at least in the vaguest of ways how he had ended up lying on the floor in what felt suspiciously like a puddle of his own blood.

They'd gone somewhere, he and his girls, and he'd protected them when they had been found. Or he thought he had. He realised he didn't know; whether that was a gap in his memories or he had never known he wasn't sure. But they hadn't been in here with him. The Death Eater had been interrogating him. He thought he'd convinced them he was a Muggleborn with an irritating tendency to go places he shouldn't be. He hoped he could remember the fake name he'd given.

And then he was awake, and he was here, and he was fairly sure he did not remember receiving some of these injuries.

Further snatches of memory showed that he had been awake several times between then and now, and none of those times had been fun.

He was still in the same room, lying on the same mud floor, and it was a puddle of his own blood.

Well, he supposed that without his wand he couldn't definitively tell it was his own blood, but logic dictated that it probably was.

Sirius lay himself back down into the blood, half voluntarily and half very much against his will. Lying down was more vulnerable. But then he doubted things would be any better for him if he was sitting up when they came back in, and possibly a whole lot worse. Shows of strength pissed off Death Eaters. They'd attack less if you pretended you weren't worth bothering with.

He'd always been a target. The eldest son of a proud pureblood family gone bad. He had a mark on his back from the very moment he'd left, and it had only grown bigger with the onset of war. His own brother had tried to kill him. Twice, if his memory recalled it correctly. James, too, had been a prime target. He was almost as much of a blood-traitor as Sirius. The rumours about Remus' condition had been spread by Snape and there were some who desperately wanted to take out a werewolf.

Peter Pettigrew was very rarely singled out for attacks. The weak, spineless fucker never got what most the others were getting and he still couldn't fucking handle it.

Sirius was going to kill Pettigrew.

Not now. He'd waited this long, and he could wait a little longer. Sirius did not want to run in and risk fucking up something so important. He'd fallen foul to that one before with Peter. He was going to get this right the next time he tried, even if it was the very last thing that he did on this earth. Even if it meant Azkaban again.

The one thing this little prison had going for it was the complete and utter lack of any Dementors.

It was true that Sirius could barely move, and that he was bleeding at what he thought was rather an alarming rate. It was true that he had no idea how to get out, given that his Animagus form would be no use to him here. A bird, that's what he should have been. Some great big fucking bitch of a bird like an eagle. Too Ravenclaw. A lion-bird.

Knowing his luck, he'd have been a fucking parrot, or a blue-tit. One couldn't be subtle if they were a parrot.

Ginny had said he wasn't subtle anyway.

She wasn't wrong.

Fuck, Ginny had to be okay. And Luna. And even Hermione.

He had been trying to look after his girls.

Well, he could add it to the list of the many fucking failures of Sirius Orion Black.

He faded into the darkness again.

This passing out business was getting a bit old, Sirius thought, as he adjusted his position on coming back into consciousness for whichever time it was this time. The dawn was breaking above him, the light slowly beginning to filter down into the cell, and he didn't remember seeing daylight the other times. He could assume it was the morning after he'd been caught, either that or he had been unconscious for longer than he'd thought.

There was a goblet of water and two slices of roughly-cut brown bread on the floor next to him. No plate. Sirius wasn't the fussy type, and he pulled himself across the floor to get at it.

The bread and water took the edge off the spinning in his head and the fuzziness around the sides of his vision. It gave him a bit more clarity in his thoughts, and Sirius found himself able to think about something other than how much he wanted to kill Pettigrew. It was, however, not something that was ever very far from his thoughts.

He should have done it in 1994, whatever Harry had to say on it. He'd said James wouldn't have wanted Sirius and Remus to become killers. James had known the realities of war. Harry had been naive to assume that Sirius would not already have killed. It was true that thirteen-year-old Harry had known less of the first war than he would later know, but for a man to have got through that, on the front lines no less, without casting a deadly spell would have been a fucking miracle. James had done it. And so had Sirius.

It was not that Sirius wanted to kill people, or not people as a generic class. People specifically, yes. Pettigrew. Bellatrix. Rodolphus who was just as much pure evil as his wife. Faces swam in front of Sirius' mind, people who had been terrible examples of wizardry, but his focus was not back to where it should be and he just couldn't remember the names.

Oh fuck the lot of them.

"And what have you called me for, Selwyn."

Sirius looked up in the direction of the aggrieved voice, coming from the hole in the cell above his head. Nobody was visible, but their voice was as clear as they came. A posh voice, and somehow recognisable to Sirius.

"I want you to take a look at him."

"And you could not have called somebody else?"

"Hardly my fault if you drank too much celebrating your pledging last night. The Dark Lord's plans do not wait for fripperies such as weddings."

"The Dark Lord is most approving of my impending marriage, so if we could cut to the chase."

"We've caught some idiot breaking into that place that Dolohov was supposed to be minding in Cumbria. Seems like he's a Mudblood with a death wish rather than anyone we're worried about, but…"

"But you do not want anyone you do not trust to find out that you're unsure, in case you release a member of the Order of Phoenix."

"I trust you."

"I will endeavour to prove your choice wise. Tell me what happened."

"Dolohov was injured, you know that. The place he'd been tasked with in Cumbria needed to be sorted. Things have been delayed, and he got me to go up there. I went, and found a group inside. Three women, I think, and a man. They escaped,"

Sirius breathed a sigh of relief, as the man continued talking.

"I caught him. He says he's a Mudblood named William Smith, and I've performed all the usual checks, but something isn't right. He's using Occlumency, but not a form I've encountered before. He's hiding something."

He was hiding a whole lot of things, including the fact that he'd once fucked Selwyn's sister. Although that was more for her sake than his own. He wasn't ashamed of a relationship with a Slytherin girl; she was ashamed of the relationship with a blood traitor and afraid of what her family would say or do.

That didn't hurt him. A lot of people were ashamed of having been associated with him.

"It is of course possible he is simply bad at Occlumency," said Selwyn's accomplice.

"I'd be pleased if you'd look at him, regardless."

"Certainly. I am always at your service. Besides, it reflects badly on me if someone I have personally recommended to the Dark Lord causes a valuable asset to be killed before he is of use."

Sirius flinched at that. Death was not something he had considered. He should have, really. He knew what Death Eaters did. Any organisation with Death in the name spent a fair amount of time dealing with the concept of death, and would almost certainly not be adverse to dealing some out from time to time. And, he was their prisoner, and would either be found out for what he was and sent off to Voldy-pants or killed, because that was what the Death Eaters were all about.

Fuck.

He didn't yet have an escape plan.

It would be a shit end for Sirius Black, if this was where it indeed ended. A survivor of all sorts of daring escapades and some horrific situations, and he'd die under a fake name for having trespassed somewhere that turned out to be incredibly uninteresting.

It seemed like a bit of a waste of a life, even if his hadn't been much coup.

He'd have liked to have had the chance to kill Peter and Bellatrix before he went. See Harry grow up and do the godfather thing right. Give Remus a kick up the bum and make him understand his worth. Maybe find love. The first few seemed achievable, but the last was on a hiding to nothing and always had been.

He really did need to work on that escape plan, not think about all the ways he could have improved his life if he'd had the chance to live it over.

There was a scraping sound from above him, and Sirius knew he had to think fast. He arranged himself back onto the floor as quickly as his battered, bruised and still bleeding body would let him, pretending he was still unconscious rather than having been listening in to their conversation. He had to remember that William Smith was a Muggleborn in the wrong place at the wrong time and wouldn't be as brave (or foolhardy, depending how you looked at it) as the Order of Phoenix member and blood traitor Sirius Black.

"Is this him?"

"Yes."

"You have rather, what is the term Dolohov uses, roughed him up, have you not?"

"He wasn't cooperating."

"Did you use Muggle methods?"

"They work as well as anything else, and give you the element of surprise."

"I can hardly see his face. Wake him up, Selwyn, I would speak with him."

Sirius felt a boot collide with his face, and several curses hit his body. He groaned in response, and rolled onto his back. On opening his eyes, he understood exactly why that voice had been familiar.

In front of him stood his brother.

"He looks dreadful," said Regulus, peering down into his older brother's face. His expression was careful, guarded. His dark eyes, the exact match of Sirius' own, had no shred of emotion in them. But Sirius knew his brother, and he knew that Regulus at least suspected who he was.

"He wasn't cooperating," said Selwyn. "What else would you have had me do?"

"Use methods, like the rest of us, that enable us to see who it is we have been interrogating," said Regulus, the smallest touch of impatience in his voice. "I am well aware you are only recently Marked, Selwyn, but the Dark Lord does expect a certain finesse."

"That's not why he has Greyback on the sides."

"Greyback is an animal, at best. You are a pureblood, and you are somewhat expected to act so."

"Do you recognise him? Now I compare you, he looks familiar." Selwyn looked from Regulus to Sirius and back again. "He looks an awful lot like you, does he not? Could it be that brother of yours?" Selwyn's face had turned from the face of a man with little idea what was going on to that of one who felt they were onto something at long last. Sirius tried to arrange his own into something that did not resemble the panic he felt rising inside him, but that also did not look as if he had something to hide.

It was not his strong suite.

"He has the look of my family, that much is true," said Regulus. He stepped closer to where Sirius was on the ground. "I could have had a better look was his face not swollen beyond all hope."

"We've covered that issue," said Selwyn, grumpiness crossing his face,

"It is likely he is who he says he is," said Regulus, at last. "The look is similar, but this is not my brother. I saw my brother not two months ago, in the Devon raid, and he was not this old. It could well be a relation. Merlin knows Uncle Alphard had enough witches through his bed, if the rumours are to be believed, and fathered enough illegitimate offspring to fill a Quidditch team. It would explain the face."

"It would add up," said Selwyn. "I heard those rumours, too. My maiden aunt was a frequent attendee of his parties."

Sirius allowed himself to relax slightly. Thank fuck for Alphard and his indiscretions.

"It still begs the question of why exactly he was there," said Regulus. "I had understood that to be an entirely secret project."

"It was," said Selwyn. "It is."

"Well then," said Regulus, squatting down onto the mud floor in his expensive robes and looking directly into Sirius' eyes that were so identical to his own. "Why do you know about it?" His voice was soft, dangerous, and demanding an answer.

"I…" said Sirius. "I like exploring."

"And why there?"

"Because my friend found it."

Don't lie, he reminded himself. Regulus knows Legilimency as well as any other. Twist the truth, and use what little Occlumency you have.

"I see. Do you know who we are, Mudblood?"

"The mask… from before… I recognise it from the Prophet."

Sirius was finding it hard to speak. He had a broken rib, he suspected, if not more than one. Something was crushing his lung, at any rate. Every time he moved, a sharp pain flared in his chest, and getting enough air in for words to come out was painful.

"And you know what the mask means?"

"Death…" Sirius couldn't force the last word out as his chest felt as though it would cave in on him.

"Close enough," said Regulus. He raised himself from the floor and stood back, using his wand to remove the dust and dirt from the robes. "Selwyn, I see no reason to keep this Mudblood any longer. He is of no use to us, and certainly of none to the Dark Lord."

"I'll dispose of him then," said Selwyn, raising his wand.

So this was how it ended. Of all the noble deaths he'd imagined for himself, he'd ended up in the dirt and his own blood, killed by his brother and a crony.

"I would suggest dumping him as he is," said Regulus, with an air of not really caring at all. "Killing him here hardly serves as a warning. The Dark Lord prefers us to act in accordance with his style at all possible times, of course. This scum will hardly survive long."

"Yes, I hadn't thought," said Selwyn. "A slow death is perhaps better."

"Indeed," said Regulus. "Perhaps I will come with you. It is either this, or listening to my mother list all of those who behaved inappropriately last night, after all."

"Beginning with Avery, and his display with the Carrow girl, I suppose."

"Mother has indeed spoken at length on that topic already."

Sirius felt the burn of a cut along his leg as the two wizards spoke. He tried to shout out, his metal capacity focused on keeping his secrets hidden as best he could and not on silence, but his lungs were still struggling under the strain of his injuries and no noise left him.

"Want a go, Regulus? There's more of him for you if you like?"

"That will suffice. He has learnt some of his lesson from you, but I felt there was something I personally could add. He is, after all, a possible relation, if not one I would wish to ever acknowledge.

Sirius was certain that Regulus knew who he was.

The two wizards unceremoniously bound Sirius, who struggled against them as much as he could force his body to. More out of a sense of needing to, rather than because it would do any good.

"Selwyn," said Regulus, almost bored, "stop him."

" _Stupefy,"_ muttered Selwyn, and Sirius was gone again.

He awoke back in the dark, and in amongst trees, bathed in an almost eerie green light. He could feel nothing but pain, and the blood was following him. It was here too, underneath him.

Oh, yes, he remembered now. It was his blood.

Being tortured fucked with your head.

Sirius tried to move himself into a sitting position and ultimately failed, ending up slumped in a slightly different lying down position and looking upwards instead of into the mud. Above him shone the green skull of the Dark Mark.

That gave him a strange sense of hope; there was half a chance someone would see it and alert the Aurors or the Order of the Phoenix. That said, either of those would just put him in a slightly different sticky situation.

His life was one sticky situation after another.

He lay there for a bit, drifting in and out of consciousness like the bit just before one falls asleep at night and thinking of not a lot except the shittiness of his situation and of how much he wanted to kill Peter. It was hard to focus on anything more complex. Any thought he managed to grab hold of felt as though it was instantly sliding away and swimming off down some murky, blood-coloured river.

Oh look, there was blood underneath him.

He remembered now. It was his blood. And the Dark Mark above him was for him, and Regulus had been here, and stopped that other man from killing him, except he was probably going to die here alone and in the woods.

There were worse things.

He did so want to kill Peter, though.

 _Hermione_

 _December 1978, Cumbria_

 _Several hours earlier_

"Come on!" shouted Ginny urgently from behind Hermione. "We have to leave, now!"

"Sirius," said Hermione. "We can't leave Sirius."

Ginny turned to the stairs and paused. The sounds of the battle below could still be clearly heard. There was little noise of incantations being shouted, but the crashes, grunts and occasional shouts of the two wizards fighting were obvious.

"He will be fine, Hermione, he's capable."

"He's being attacked by a Death Eater!"

"And so will we be if we don't hurry up!"

"I don't understand why you think we can just leave!"

"Hermione, for fuck's sake, he told us to!"

"He's not in charge!"

"I seem to remember," said Luna, "that we agreed that we are a democracy. I add my vote to the side of leaving, I think. Shall we go?"

From where they had been in the doorway to the bedroom they had entered through, Luna darted across the room to the window and leant out. Almost as quickly, she ducked down below the windowsill. Ginny turned and flicked her wand at the door with a mutter of " _Colloportus_ ", and stood with her arms crossed and her back against the now locked door.

"This may not be as straightforward as we had first thought," she said. "There are Death Eaters below."

"Can they see us?" asked Ginny.

"Oh, not yet," said Luna. "But they certainly will were we to jump."

"Shit," said Ginny, sliding down the door onto the floor and putting her head in her arms. "Fuckery. Merlin's saggy testicles. Bummer. Fuck."

"Let's go downstairs and get Sirius," said Hermione, "and then we can break out as one. If they don't yet know we're here, we have time."

As she said this, there was a loud crash from the downstairs level of the house, and a shout of " _Avada Kedavra!_ " Without thinking, Hermione made to open the door, prevented by Ginny in the floor in front of it.

"Don't even think about it," said Ginny. "It's dark down there. You could hit anyone. You could hit Sirius."

"I won't," she said, but she knew there was a lot of truth in Ginny's words. One-on-one duels were difficult enough in poor visibility; adding further people would likely result in disaster. She could light the room, certainly, but it was set up with Muggle lights, and they were difficult to light with magic, oh, if only she had Ron! He could manage Muggle lighting with no difficulty.

She would have to use charms to maintain light, which was difficult to do while also fighting, and would make her a target.

"If you come with me, I can light the room, and you can Stun the Death Eater quickly, and…"

"Hermione…" said Ginny. "It's not that I don't want to help Sirius, but he's more than capable, he'll be up here any moment. We can help best by working out how the fuck we get away."

"I hate to panic you," said Luna, "but there is a Death Eater outside the door to this room."

"Shit," muttered Ginny, again.

"The Anti-Disapparition wards only cover the building," said Luna, her voice only slightly above whispering. She was still crouched below the windowsill, with the tip of her wand pointing above her and swirling in circles as she performed the basic detection spells for wards, jinxes and curses. "Once we get to the ground, we should be able to Apparate away. There are two outside the house, and one outside this door."

"Sirius?" asked Hermione.

"There is a person downstairs," said Luna. "Which logic would dictate is Sirius."

"We blast through the door," said Hermione. "Ginny and Luna overpower the Death Eater, and I grab Sirius, and we can get him up the stairs and out."

"If you think I cannot hear what you are saying," said the Death Eater, "then you are sorely mistaken. _Reducto!"_

Ginny grabbed at Hermione's arm, and pulled her through the window.

They landed, and they ran, Ginny half-pulling Hermione and casting spells with her spare hand and Luna flying along behind. Hermione twisted out of Ginny's arms as they reached a clump of bushes and threw herself to the floor. Luna landed beside her as the whoosh of a curse sailed past them. The Death Eater in the window was firing spells down at the three of them, and another had rounded the corner of the building and was bearing down on them at ground level. Luna spun herself on her stomach so she was facing the Death Eater. Ginny dropped to the ground behind Hermione.

"Apparate," said Hermione. "Or go back in?"

"Shit," said Ginny. "They're both really terrible options."

"Dying is the worst one," said Luna, taking aim.

"She's right again," muttered Ginny, and joined her.

The Death Eater inside the house was shouting instructions down to the one on the ground, in between yelling curses down at the three women. Hermione watched closely. Ginny and Luna were handling the fighting side more than competently, and they'd already fallen foul of not keeping enough eyes out tonight. She held her wand aloft, ready, and swept the loose strands at the front of her hair up and out of the way.

The watching paid off when the third Death Eater appeared and darted into the door of the building. Hermione caught him with a hex, and he tripped and stumbled through the door with a crash.

"Nice one," said Ginny, as she sliced her wand at the Death Eater in the window who promptly disappeared. "D'you think I got him?"

"No," said Luna. She was weaving a complex net of spells around the man on the ground, who was becoming angrier and advancing on them at some considerable speed. Hermione and Ginny acted at the same time, throwing spells at him at the exact moment Luna's net closed around him. The man was thrown several metres into the air, and landed with a heavy thud on the damp ground, his mask flying off in an arc behind him.

"Is he?" asked Ginny.

"I think so," said Hermione. He was a fair distance from them still, but she could see no signs of movement in his chest from within his robes.

"Shit."

"He would have done the same to us," said Luna. "The question is more what we do next than whether we sit to mourn what we have done."

"Watch the door," said Hermione, taking back the role of lookout. "It's moving." She didn't much want to think about whether or not they had killed him. He was a Death Eater, yes, but she had learnt in her last war that not all of them deserved to die.

All three of them trained their wands on it. This was the worst part of any fight, the seconds before the beginning. The seconds where you thought about the fact that you could die any minute, could kill any minute, that it could go so very right or very, very wrong. In the heat of it, none of it mattered, but this was the worst part.

But this part was over in seconds; the two Death Eaters remaining dashed out of the building. One covered them with a blanket indiscriminate curses that hit Hermione's hastily put up Shield Charm, and the other was levitating the floppy body of Sirius Black out of the building. Ginny shrieked and made to run forwards, and Hermione found herself travelling forwards with her. But before they could make it more than a step or two out of the bushes, he was gone. He'd been Apparated away, and to where they didn't know.

"Was he?" asked Ginny.

"Dead?" asked Luna. "The word is not a curse, and you should know that by now. But no, he is not. Were he dead, they would have left the body and put up the dark mark over the building, and they have taken him away."

Hermione had thought the same. It made sense; they would want information from Sirius. Why he was there, who he was with, how he had found the building. It did not bode well for Sirius, but at least he was alive. For now.

"But why have they left us here?" she asked, voicing the question she did have about this whole thing.

"Dunno," said Ginny, flopping backwards onto the grass but not relinquishing her tight hold on her wand. "Maybe they're idiots. Merlin knows half of them are. More than half. Or new, or just don't see us as important."

"Or they're behind us," said Hermione. She turned, and just for piece of mind cast revealing spells around them. "No. Nobody."

"What next, then?" asked Ginny. "What do we do about that body?"

Luna took some bananas from her pocket and passed one to each of the other girls in silence. Ginny peeled hers and began to eat, but Hermione couldn't muster up the appetite. Instead she stood, and began to walk a circle of the building, casting spells of revealing as she did so. She had to be certain he was no longer here.

As a child, she had been terrified of abandoned buildings and empty woodlands, especially in the dark. But here she stood, on the edges of an empty wood, watching over the dark and abandoned house. There was more in life to be afraid of than the emptiness. Yes, these places could hold many horrors, but there was far more to be afraid of in a human than there was in the simplicity of the quiet, dark nature or the empty rooms of a house.

An owl hooted overhead, and the scurry of little animals below could be heard. They knew, Hermione thought, they knew who their predator was.

Sirius knew. He had said from the start of this horrific adventure that they would need to take on Death Eaters, and he had been right. He had thrown himself into danger for others too often. He was who he was, and that was a brave if occasionally incredibly stupid man. He should not have fought alone. She should not have allowed herself to be encouraged to leave him.

Ginny had argued that they had done what Sirius had told them, but that was bullshit. Sirius had wanted to save them, and if Hermione had learnt one thing it was that too many good people were willing to sacrifice themselves to save others. How many times had she watched Harry try? It was true that once, that had been the correct course of action, but that did not make it the right choice. Twice, if you counted Lily. Which you had to.

Dumbledore had built a narrative about her sacrifice, which had lead Harry to believe that it was what somebody should do. He had simplified things. Harry was teenager, that had always been the excuse. He wasn't exactly any other teenager. He ought to have known, and had the truth given to him without the romanticism of sacrifice. That said, Hermione had liked the story of Lily, as a teenager. She'd thought it brave, and poetic, and it was in it's own way. But not as a model for everyone else.

"Hermione?" came a whisper in the dark, from Luna.

"Luna."

"Would you prefer to be alone, or can I talk with you?"

"I don't know."

"I like trees," said Luna, stopping beside Hermione. "They are wonderfully calming, don't you think?"

"Calm," said Hermione, "is overrated."

"Well, it is true we have had little of it, especially in recent weeks," said Luna. "I do think, though, that it is important to seek it where we can. Now is a good time. Sirius will be back with us by tomorrow evening."

"You don't know that," said Hermione.

"Nothing is certain," Luna agreed, "but the cards show a strong probability, and his tea-leaves have always been positive."

"Divination is the most imprecise magical art," said Hermione. "You can't possibly be using that to tell me that Sirius is going to be fine."

"Magic is what you make of it," said Luna, fixing her with the stare that Hermione knew signalled that this was not an argument worth having. She felt like ignoring it. "And I am no Seer. But I know enough of the divination arts to know a few things, and I find that I read things correctly more frequently than I do not."

"It's all a load of dragon dung."

"If that is what you choose to believe, then you are free to. And I am free to say that Sirius will be returned to us, if only we know where to find him."

"That's basically saying, if we do the right thing we'll get him back, and if we don't, we won't," grumbled Hermione, "which I could have told you." There was a flicker of rage within her at Luna's constant ridiculous statements, but she had no energy to pursue it. She wanted all of this to be simple. She wanted Sirius back with them, and for there to be no Death Eaters in their lives.

"It is and it isn't," said Luna, and Hermione felt a sudden urge to throw her friend from their tree. Instead, she began to pick at the bark with her fingernails. "At the current moment in time, we would not be able to get to him if we wanted. In," she consulted her pocket watch, "around four hours, we will be able to get him. As I said, if we can locate him. He is not near here, and he will not be then, either."

"Must you talk in riddles?"

"I am talking in the truths that have been given to me. It is as frustrating for me as it is for you. Both of us like to know, Hermione, it is just that we sometimes take different paths to do so. Ginny is sorry, by the way. She thinks she should not have forced you to leave. She regrets allowing Sirius to do what he did."

"Ginny did what she thought was right," said Hermione, even though she only half believed that. "You do what you think is right, and so do I, and somehow it all still seems to fuck up horrifically."

"This is how it works," said Luna. "I fear that we need more planning, and some of the luck that Harry Potter seemed to hold."

"Yes," said Hermione. "We do. Or preferably just Harry. I'd love Harry here now. He'd solve it."

"I always supposed that you were the one that solved much of it."

"Not really. He contributed just as much, most the time. Harry was lucky, though. I think we all were."

"Yes."

They stood in silence, and the owl hooted overhead once more. There was a horrific shriek, the sound of an owl swooping down and the capture of the prey. Hermione listened. There was nothing she could do for the mouse.

"Shall we go?" asked Luna. "I think some sleep would be beneficial, as we will need to be ready to find Sirius."

"Okay," said Hermione. She did need to sleep. It was obvious, that she would need to rest if she was to be working at a decent level in the morning. Logical. Simple biology. Logic and biology made sense. None of the rest of anything in her life did.

She twisted the locket that hung around her neck, as it had every day since her birthday. Sirius had given her such a thoughtful present, and she got him nothing for his birthday. He'd asked her not to, but it wasn't fair. He'd been generous and kind, when he hadn't needed to be, they'd been fighting at the time, and she'd repaid him with fighting him back and then leaving him here to be captured.

If he came back, if they got him back, she promised herself she would buy him an amazing Christmas present.

He had been so selfless, in all of this. She missed him, in a weird way. Like she would have missed Harry. Like she did miss Harry. That soft ache that someone you cared for wasn't near you, and you didn't know that they were safe. She wondered when she had begun to care for Sirius. She'd hated him, at points, and now she missed him.

"Hermione," said Luna softly. "Come and sleep. You know as well as I do that sleep promotes healthy brain functionality, and we will need all of that in the morning."

"Not wrackspurts?" asked Ginny.

Luna looked at Hermione, and she stifled a laugh. It wasn't really the time for laughing. Trauma responses, she told herself. She'd read that Muggle book on it, after the war, after everything.

And now it all was starting again.


	25. Chapter 25: Under The Mark

**a/n: It's been a while. I've been dealing with some family stuff** **the last few weeks, and hopefully a normal update schedule will resume shortly.**

 **Chapter Twenty Five: Under the Mark**

 _Ginny_

 _December 1978, Saltburn_

Ginny Weasley couldn't sleep.

Of course, she'd been struggling with what Hermione called insomnia since her first year at Hogwarts. Tom Riddle worming his way into her brain had played havoc with her sleep, not to mention several other parts of her brain's functionality, and she'd never managed to have a normal sleep pattern since. She was used to it now. It was even useful, at times. She got twice as much leisure time at Hogwarts, as she could do essays by wandlight in her room when everyone else was sleeping, and it had improved her Quidditch no end with the extra practice time. When she and Harry had kids, it would be positively beneficial.

Tonight, it was just leading to worry.

She got up, leaving Luna asleep in bed, and went down the stairs. She was used to this, too, the art of being silent in the night. She wanted a cup of tea, and a packet of Muggle crisps. At some point she would have to dial back on the crisps. They weren't part of the approved diet for a member of the England World Cup squad, which she attempted to stick to even as she forced herself to admit the chances of her playing in that tournament were low. Low to non-existent. Well, that was the situation she was in.

As far as she could understand it, that situation was fairly dire. Aside from all the usual stuck in the past with no way out shit. They'd abandoned a dead Death Eater outside a house in Cumbria, and two others had left with Sirius. She knew from Ron and Harry's work it was unlikely the kill would be traced back to the three of them, so that worry was at least out. Without the offending wand, or a grisly calling card, it was difficult to discover who had cast the spell that committed the crime. Somebody would doubtless return to get the body, too.

Ginny didn't feel particularly guilty about having killed him. Maybe she should, but there you were. If you wasted time feeling sorry for everyone, you'd never win a war. Hermione had come over all guilty, saying some of these Death Eaters were coerced, or could be persuaded to defect, or any of that shit, but Ginny thought the vast majority of them weren't. She didn't want to waste her time seeking to kill them, no, but they didn't exactly deserve to be mourned at great fucking length.

Just to be sure, she cast a quick charm onto her own wand. No. She'd not cast any spells that could have killed him.

Maybe she had felt guilty. She felt relief at it not having been her, anyway.

They'd wasted a day going around in circles, over and over again, to places they could look for Sirius and what his fate may be. He was almost certainly not back where they'd fought the Death Eaters in Cumbria, as they'd seen him be taken away. It was unclear how many hidey-holes from the second war that they knew of, like the basement in Malfoy Manor, would have been used in this one, and finding out could do more harm than good. Sirius had taken his knowledge of current ones with him. And, besides, most of them were incredibly well protected. They didn't have a friendly house-elf to help them out of sticky imprisonments this time.

It would be worth getting one, Ginny thought. Though where exactly you got a house-elf from, she didn't really know. And if you didn't know, that meant you weren't allowed to have one. Some kind of unspoken wizarding rule.

Maybe they could go and steal the Weasley's ghoul. He wasn't exactly helpful, but he wasn't unhelpful either.

Nah, they already had Sirius lurking in the loft. Or would again soon. They didn't need anyone else up there.

She put the cup down on the coffee table and sank into the armchair. She flipped her hair back into a bun, as she had a terrible track record of dipping the ends of it into her tea by accident, and popped open the bag of crisps. Cheese and onion. She preferred salt and vinegar, but Sirius must have eaten all of those.

There was a strange beauty to one o'clock in the morning, even if you were worrying about your kidnapped friend. Outside, nothing moved, except the occasional cat walking down the street. There were no sounds, except the birds. Once your eyes adjusted to the dark, the stars were beautiful. And when you'd grown up in a house where there was always somebody else, or five or six somebody's, there was calm in being alone.

She put on her trainers and took the cup of tea outside, abandoning the crisp packet shrivelled up on the coffee table.

Ginny stood in the garden. She wanted to do something. Maybe she could wait a little longer, and then go back up to the house and see what the situation was. If she was careful, she'd be able to see if the Death Eaters had been back to remove their dead friend. If they hadn't, she'd be able to see who they were.

It didn't seem very sensible, but it felt like doing something. And that felt good, she liked doing things, and she was frequently told she wasn't good at being sensible. Percy would have given her a lecture. So would Bill. Charlie would have suggested other options, George would have given her some merchandise to help her out, and told her not to tell their mother, and Ron… well, Ron was difficult to predict. But then, their thoughts were irrelevant. She was here, and they were there. She didn't have brothers to rescue her here, but then, half of them had been essentially useless at that and none of them had been there in that year at Hogwarts when it would have mattered.

Ah, fuck it, she was going to go.

Carefully, she dressed in dark jeans and jumper and Sirius' black bomber jacket, her own coat having disappeared somewhere that an Accio didn't seem to reach, and Apparated to the place he'd disappeared from. Immediately as she arrived, she ducked into the trees and concealed herself as best she could. She could do this.

The body of the Death Eater was gone, she noticed as she crept closer to the building. Or, it had at least been moved. Somebody had been back here.

That made her life easier in some ways, as she wouldn't have to work out what to do with a slightly overweight dead body without anyone asking too many questions as to her identity. It did mean she wouldn't be able to positively identify who they'd killed, however. He'd had a mask on during the fight, and all she had to go on was that he was probably both taller and heavier than average. Which wasn't helpful.

Ginny was cautious, more so this time, and checked the area thoroughly using both magical and physical means for any further human presence before she even thought about going into the property. It was possibly incredibly stupid, going back in, but she needed to know. What Hermione would say didn't really bear thinking about, but it was unlikely Hermione would need to know. And, besides, there was nobody in there. She pushed open the now completely ward-free door, and entered.

The house was the same as they had left it, with the exception of several smashed objects and a broken shelf on the floor by where Sirius and the Death Eater had duelled. Otherwise, there was no sign of any fight the evening before, and certainly nothing to give a clue as to where Sirius had been taken. Which was as much as she had expected. She bent down to comb through the pieces of shelf and unidentified objects.

One of the intruder charms she'd woven into the door on her arrival went off.

As quickly as she could, Ginny used the strongest Disillusionment Charm she could muster, and several of the Auror masking charms Harry had taught her. For good measure, she stood and flattened herself into the wall in amongst the broken objects. The intruder rounded the corner, long, dirty-blonde hair reflecting the light of the moon outside.

"Luna?" she asked, the hiding having probably been for nothing. "What are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you, I would imagine," said Luna, "providing this is Ginny I am talking to and not some tricksy sprite."

Ginny revealed herself. "More specifically?"

"I saw you were gone from bed. I know you well enough to assume you would come here. Besides, I am curious as to if we can garner any clues."

"I don't think so," said Ginny. "There's nothing."

"It appears so."

"Was Hermione still asleep?"

"She was. You know she takes sleeping potions, don't you? Has ever since the war."

"No, I didn't. Does Ron know?"

"I would imagine not. He is not the most observant."

"But you do?"

"I'm observant."

Ginny decided it was better to leave that one well alone. It made sense. that Hermione would do that. Ginny had at points. And she saw no reason to discuss it any further with Luna. That was Hermione's business, and she'd tell them if she wanted to. Besides, nobody got answers by going in all wands blazing, if they wanted to stay on good terms with the person in question. Instead, Ginny continued her fruitless poke around the building, and the only thing she established there was absolutely nothing they could learn here. Maybe Miss Observant had found something.

Luna hadn't, and was just as baffled by the purpose of the place as Ginny was. That made Ginny feel slightly better about this whole thing. Spending so much time with just Luna, or just Hermione, was fine, but both of them and Sirius when their brains all seemed to fly at twice the speed of hers? Not so much fun.

Then again, she thought this outing wasn't exactly supposed to be a fun one.

"What next?" she asked, leaning out of the window she'd earlier jumped from and observing the dark trees ahead of her

"This is, as they say, your outing," said Luna. "What was your next plan, exactly?"

"Didn't have one," Ginny admitted.

"You are as bad as Sirius himself."

"Hope he's alive. Fucking hell, what will we do if he isn't? We need his knowledge if we're going to have any hope of not making things about forty times as bad."

"Why forty?" asked Luna.

"Picked it at random," said Ginny.

"It is probably unimportant," said Luna, joining Ginny at the window. As usual, Luna wore robes, never Muggle clothing, and her hair was loose. It looked impractical to Ginny, who preferred her hair kept out of the way. "Perhaps his knowledge is not important. There will be changes, Ginevra. Perhaps we need him back for us, not for our cause."

"Yeah," said Ginny. "I'd miss him."

"We all have someone we would miss most of all. Yours is not here."

Ginny reflected on that, or was halfway through it anyway, when there was a short from the ground.

" _Mordesmordre!"_

"That was…" said Ginny. The Dark Mark burst from the trees, illuminating the building in a green light. She stepped back from the window and ducked down, not wanting her face lit up, but the cracks of Apparition below suggested that whoever had cast it was leaving if not already gone. "Do you think it could be…" she asked Luna.

"It's possible, but whether it is probable, I do not know," replied Luna.

"Only one way to find out," said Ginny. Tapping herself on the head with a Disillusionment Charm, she turned to head down the stairs and out of the building. She went with a sense of both trepidation and excitement. She honestly wasn't sure which was winning.

"The window would be quicker," said Luna, jumping.

Ginny sighed. She'd jumped out of that window only a little over twenty-four hours ago, and she hadn't much wanted to do it again. She would, she knew, as she twisted back around in the doorway, because Luna was right, it was quicker, but she didn't want to.

They hit the floor within seconds of each other, but Ginny was faster on the getaway, sprinting towards the location of the Dark Mark with her wand outstretched and her ponytail bobbing behind. It would be nice, she thought, if things would be normal in her life just for a bit. A year or so would be nice, but honestly, at this stage she would take a week. She leapt over a log that was mouldering on the floor, and twisted through the trees to find the fastest route to whoever had been dumped under the Dark Mark.

"Sirius?" she said, as she skidded to a halt beside the unfortunate body. "Sirius! Shit." She threw herself down onto the ground next to him, rolled him onto his back and began to prod and slap his chest. "Wake the fuck up, you bastard, I don't want to have to drag you home, where the fuck is… oh, there you are!" she shouted at the sound of somebody else arriving beside her and turned to issue instructions. "Can you see if…"

It wasn't Luna. An imposingly tall, scarred man stood over her, with soft sandy brown hair falling into his face as he eyed her with a look of confusion.

"I'm not who you were expecting, am I?" he said.

"No. Who are you?" she asked, as she waved her wand over Sirius in a diagnostic spell so as to see what exactly was causing him to be unconscious. She knew full well who this man was, of course, but she could hardly admit that. That would mean questions. Thousands of the damn things. They'd agreed not to reveal themselves, or at least not yet.

"Remus. Remus Lupin. Who are you?"

Ginny was muttering spells at Sirius' chest, trying to stem the flow of blood through his t-shirt, when he asked, and used her moments her first-aid attempts bought her to come up with a plausible alternative identity for herself. Remembering what Harry and Ron had said about it being easier to impersonate someone that existed than create a whole fictional identity, she answered with "Philomena Prewett."

She couldn't be a Weasley. Yes, there were about a hundred of the damn things, but they all knew every one of them. And, besides, her hair was Prewett ginger, not Weasley red.

"Any relation to Gideon and Fabian Prewett?" Remus asked, kneeling down in the puddle of blood next to Sirius' body. His heart was beating, if a bit weaker than Ginny would have liked, and the blood was what needed to be dealt with first. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Second cousin, I think. Or first, once removed. I get all of this mixed up. Never met them, family shit, not got anything against them though. Pull his t-shirt off," said Ginny, and then changed her mind. Remus would have seen Sirius' rather distinctive scars across his back and chest before, and she didn't want to open that can of worms unless he looked likely to full-on die. "Actually, don't. I think that could increase the bleeding. Check his legs, can you?"

She rummaged around in her pocket for the Dittany she'd brought. His face was badly cut and swollen, so much as for it to be difficult to recognise him, but she didn't much want to heal that yet. Too much risk. As Luna arrived, she pulled up Sirius' t-shirt gently, from the top so as to reveal minimum skin, and began to combine drops of the Dittany with the healing spells her mother had taught her. Gradually, the skin began to reform and the blood flow lessened, but he'd lost a lot.

" _Scourgify_ ," said Luna, firmly, pointing her wand at the puddle of blood. Ginny was glad someone else was handling the cleaning up.

"His legs are okay," said Remus. "One nasty, but neat, cut along his left thigh, which I've healed, and some bruising. How is he?"

"Not going to die," said Ginny. She wasn't an expert, but she knew that much was true. "But he's got some significant blood loss, and looks like some minor nerve damage from the Cruciatus." It was significant, and it was somewhat of a wonder Sirius could function, but technically the damage done in the last day was minor. "And a shit-tonne of bruising."

"Is shit-tonne a medical term?" asked Remus.

"No," said Ginny. "Or not one the person who taught me would have used." Molly Weasley did not approve of swearing. The English language had plenty of words, she would say, without needing to resort to swearing or nonsense. Ginny continued to check in Sirius' hair for any head injury. He had a few minor abrasions, nothing serious, and no evidence of internal damage here.

"Are you a Healer? You seem to know what you're doing."

"I know enough," she said, standing up. Enough to have stopped anyone dying in that horrible sixth year of Hogwarts, when it was normal for someone to stumble into the Room of Requirement looking about ten minutes from death. Pomfrey couldn't keep up with everyone, so she'd had to step in. Learnt on the job, in the main. "I'm not a Healer, though. Couldn't hack it, even if I wanted to, which I don't."

"She would be excellent, though, wouldn't she?"

"I recognise you," said Remus, to Luna. He stood up too.

"You work in the British Wizarding Library, don't you? I like going there, I've seen you several times. Although not recently, now I think of it."

"Er," said Remus, and his hand moved up to fiddle with the short hairs at the nape of his neck. "I don't work there now. I'm at the Ministry now. Receptionist for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes."

"Oh," said Luna, as if this was a pleasant chat in a pub. "I'm at the Ministry too. Records, in the Minister's Department."

"I remember. Pandora, wasn't it?"

"That's me."

"Well, nice of you two to be able to catch up," said Ginny, losing patience, "but we need to be moving on now. Got an unconscious idiot to nurse back to health, and I can't lift him alone, Pandora." It was not the time for nice, friendly chats with people. Even if they were the exact ones they were here to save.

"Certainly," said Luna. She didn't miss a beat when reacting to her fake name. That was handy. And also slightly suspicious. Ginny had a good eye for the suspicious. She buried it, for now. Not the time.

"Just a second," said Remus. He glanced down at Sirius, and when the body didn't do something like explode, or whatever it was he was expecting it to do, Remus continued. "Who is he, and what are you all doing here?

"Our idiotic friend, and we're working out what happened to said idiotic friend," said Ginny.

"It is somewhat of a long story," said Luna.

"Aren't they all," muttered Ginny. She wanted to get home. Hermione would kill them for having gone without her, and Ginny preferred the idea of a quick death.

"Well," said Remus. "I'm supposed to be reporting on what happened here tonight, so I do need to know what's happened."

"This looks like a Death Eater attack to me, not a magical accident and certainly not a catastrophe by the Ministry's definition, and I thought you were a receptionist, anyway."

"Not for the Ministry," said Remus.

"Well," said Ginny, in a tone that was more terse and far more like her mother's than she had planned, "I'm not telling just some wizard in the woods anything." Sirius was fucking close to dead, and she was about done with small talk. It was Remus, and he didn't deserve talking to like that, but she was in the middle of something for Merlin's sake.

Luna tapped her on the shoulder, twice, and Ginny relaxed her face out of the glare it had set in.

"Sorry," she said. "That was unnecessary."

"It was," Remus agreed. "I'm trying to help your friend too, you know."

"I can't see how telling you things will help." What Ginny meant was, she didn't know where to even start with the story.

"Your friend has been attacked by Death Eaters," said Remus, his hand in the back of his hair again. "We are trying to prevent as many attacks as we can and ultimately bring down the people behind them. Your friend is lucky to be alive. We need information."

As if she didn't know Sirius was lucky. She couldn't reveal what she knew of the people he was working for. That most of them would go on to be killed, pretty much unless they got Sirius back healthy and intact, and Remus himself would die for the cause. Talking to a dead man, it was, even though he was as alive as she was now. She'd not long got over how strange that was with Sirius.

"I'm sorry about my friend," said Luna. "She's just… well, it is difficult when your friend is in danger, is it not?" Remus nodded. "We were here on a camping trip. We didn't expect to find Death Eaters. It's all been a bit of a shock."

"This whole thing is a fucking horrible shock," Ginny agreed. "Sorry. We want You-Know-Who just as dead as you do, I promise."

"It must be," said Remus. "Do you know where… what is your friends name? Where he was when he was attacked?"

"He went off to find some wood for a fire," said Luna. "He said it was all damp where we were, or something, I wasn't listening. I would assume it was somewhere near here. That would make sense. We were not far. I'm sorry we cannot be of more help, Remus."

"Remus?" came Sirius' voice from the floor. With her wand in her pocket, Ginny flicked a Silencing Charm in his direction; knowing their luck he'd come too and blow their story by half-conscious ramblings.

"Does he know me?" Remus asked, looking down at Sirius' blinking, baffled and bruised face.

"Oh, I don't have a clue," said Luna. "He's an odd one. And you have an unusual name, don't you? Is it okay if we get him home, now?"

"I can't stop you," said Remus, although he looked as though as he very much wanted to. "And if you've given me all the information you have, that's helpful." A sigh. "Look," he said, directly to Ginny. "I know it's hard, I'm sorry if I was pushy. I know your cousins, Gideon and Fabian, and they're in this with me. We're trying to stop You-Know, Voldemort, however we can." His voice shook a little on the Voldemort, this not even nineteen year old Remus, who was seeing things he shouldn't have to. She'd seen this shit younger, of course, but that wasn't the point, and it wasn't a competition, and everyone was too young for this.

"So do I," said Ginny. That much was true, no matter what. She put a hand on his shoulder, a sort of sorry and a thank you at the same time.

"Well," he said. "If you ever want to meet Gideon and Fabian, or help us out, send me an owl. I know they'd like to meet more family, and, well, we could use people with your healing skills. You're good, you know?"

"Okay," said Ginny. "I'll think about it."

"We had better get him home," said Luna. "Thank you, Remus. Maybe I'll see you around at the Ministry."

"Maybe," said Remus, and Apparated away.

"Why are you saying that?" asked Ginny. "You don't work at the Ministry?"

"Don't I?" asked Luna. "Did you silence Sirius?"

"Yes," said Ginny, removing the enchantment. "Sorry, Sirius." She'd deal with Luna later. The later list was growing.

"Ginny? Regulus… he saw me… they didn't find out anything, Ginny, I promise…"

"The most important thing is getting you fixed," she said. "Then we can discuss what happened. Do you think you can drink a potion? You've lost a lot of blood, and I've got some Blood Replenisher, a Stabiliser thingy and a Pepper-Up in my pocket. That should get you through an Apparition, which is our only real viable way home. I can fix the rest better when I've got light to work with."

"Erugh," said Sirius, which Ginny took as a yes, and tipped the first vial of potion down his throat. "Tastes shit."

"Yeah, and these other two are worse," she said.

Ginny did sort of want to meet Gideon and Fabian, the uncles she'd heard so much about but that had died before she was born. Everyone said they were identical to Fred and George, and she wanted to know just how much. But then there was the Order, and it wasn't exactly the plan to go get tangled up in the first Order of the Phoenix as if they didn't know what was going to happen to half of them. Including Gideon and Fabian. So she wouldn't, probably. It was the better solution, however curious she was.

"Come on," she said to Luna. "Do you want to take him, or shall I?"

"You," said Luna. "I'll tidy up here, and follow you on. That is more my skill set than yours, do you not think?"

Ginny nodded. She pulled Sirius up by the shoulders, and made to Apparate. And, as she touched down in their favoured alleyway for Apparition, dropped Sirius onto the waiting feet of Hermione, who Ginny had not expected to be there.

"Sirius?" said Hermione. "Ginny?"

"The very same," said Ginny. "Can you help me with him?"

"Where the hell have you been?" muttered Hermione with venom, glancing up at the houses around them, although she conjured a stretcher and began to levitate Sirius onto it. "I woke up and you were gone! You could have gone anywhere! Anything could have happened!"

"It didn't," said Ginny. "If anything, it was lucky we did what we did. We have Sirius, and he's not dead, although he might have been were we much longer getting him."

"Dead," said Sirius. "Not dead. Never dead. Maimed. Mangled. Lightly killed. Not dead."

"Killed and dead have a wide variety of similarities," said Luna, landing beside them with a gentle swirl of her robes. "But perhaps now is not the time for semantics."

"Is it ever?" asked Ginny, as she took up the back of the strange procession into their house. The lightly stirring body of Sirius on the stretcher in the lead, his face and hair still full of his own blood and the occasional disjointed sentence falling from his mouth. Hermione next, her face set and almost growling as she directed Sirius along. Luna, completely unconcerned about any of this and probably thinking about the weirdnesses of the English language. And then Ginny, wearing Sirius' oversized jacket, splattered with blood, and once again feeling as though she was out of control of the situation.

They arrived into the house, and Hermione began to manoeuvre the stretcher upstairs.

"Where are you putting him?" Ginny asked.

"In his bed," said Hermione.

"Can't get in," Ginny replied. "He's done something to the hatch. Wards, or something else, but anyway, we can't get in without him doing it for us, and I don't think he's in any state to. I don't even know if he has his wand."

"Blood sacrifice," said Sirius. Ginny and Hermione both ignored that.

"Fine," said Hermione, in a clipped tone. "I'll put him in mine."

Ginny didn't understand what she'd done wrong. Well, she did. But it had worked out for the best, so there had to be some leeway in forgiving that for the greater good or whatever it was. And where had Luna disappeared off to? She followed Hermione up the stairs; she needed to deal with Sirius' facial injuries still, and do a proper check of his chest and back.

Hermione lowered him onto the bed, Vanishing the stretcher from underneath him, and made to begin removing his shirt.

"Hang on," said Ginny. 'You'll want to check if it's stuck anywhere first."

"I'm fairly good at basic Healing," said Hermione, and continued. The fabric caught on a partially-healed cut across Sirius' stomach, and he let out a squark of pain, his arms flailing slightly as if trying to reach the source of the pain. Ginny bit back the urge to say 'I told you so'. It never helped. Instead, she prodded Hermione out of the way and took over herself, using her wand to loosen the material and remove the shirt herself.

"What gives you the right to do this?" asked Hermione, with a menace Ginny wasn't expecting.

"I know my stuff," said Ginny. "And, besides, I saw a bit of it back at the woods, I know what I'm dealing with and what I've already tried." She paused. She was tired, and she was on edge, and she shouldn't continue speaking. "Hermione, you don't always get to be in charge."

"You didn't even tell me where you were going!" Hermione said, shrilly. "I wasn't even spoken to! This is serious, this is important, I wanted to help, I…"

"The wants of neither of you are as important as the needs of Sirius, at this present moment in time," said Luna, appearing in the doorway. "I have warm water. I feel shouting is not good for patient morale."

"Thank you," said Ginny. She had been right that she shouldn't have continued speaking. It had been insensitive at least, if true, Hermione didn't get to be in charge. Although perhaps she should have been told. But then, it wasn't Ginny's fault she was using sleeping potions. It was Voldemort's.

Well, you certainly could blame Voldemort for most things, but it was generally a stretch for something like this.

"Hermione," she said, turning to her friend. "Can you bathe the cuts? I want to see the damage before I use any more spells, and I can't see for the blood." She passed the bowl over, before adding to that. "And I'm sorry. I should have woken you. It wasn't just you I was leaving out, I didn't exactly tell Luna either."

"Luna finds out," said Luna, in a disconcerting way which Ginny chose to ignore.

"I don't want to lose him," said Hermione. She stood with the cloth, soaked in blood, in her left hand, making no effort to continue moving it across Sirius' chest. "We can't lose Sirius."

"He's better than he was," said Ginny, which she felt acknowledged the level of work they still had to do to get Sirius back to normal. "He isn't at death's door, as we found him, and he'll survive the night. But it will take time to get him back to normal. And all of us."

"Don't die," said Sirius.

"He's improving if he can talk," said Ginny. "Come on, let's do this together."

Hermione resumed her cleaning, and Ginny began to heal the cuts as they became easier to see, and together they ran the diagnostic spells and discussed how to treat his less visible injuries. Behind them, Luna did whatever it was Luna did, placing some kind of spell to distract pixies or something. They worked together, and Ginny did feel terrible that Hermione had not come with them. They were a team. They stuck together.

"I'm sorry, Ginny," said Hermione. "If you hadn't done it the way you did, we might not have found him."

"There's so many options, that isn't necessarily true," said Ginny.

"You are starting to talk somewhat like us," said Luna.

"Grim," said Sirius. "Portent of death. Not dead."

"He sounds as though he is losing his sanity," said Luna.

"And everyone else here is entirely sane," muttered Ginny, but quietly enough so as nobody else could hear her. Life-or-death scenarios, which this one was sort-of no longer, were not the time for making snarky comments perhaps. Fred and George would, but that was Fred and George. Maybe Fabian and Gideon did.


	26. Chapter 26: Recuperation

**Chapter Twenty Six: Recuperation**

 _Sirius_

 _December 1978_

He was running.

" _Peter," he shouted, as he slammed into the gate, wrestling with the catch to pull it open. The gate was jammed, it wouldn't open, so he put his hands on the top and threw himself over it instead._

" _Peter!" he shouted as he ran up the garden path. "Peter!" The door wasn't locked, it swung open as he pushed into it with the palm of his hands and tripped, almost falling onto the patterned carpet. The house was perfect, pristine, an ordinary three-bedroomed semi-detached in a Muggle suburb of Manchester. Nothing out of the ordinary here, certainly no wizards in hiding._

 _There was supposed to be._

" _Peter!" he shouted, again, as he checked the downstairs rooms._

" _Peter!" He ran upstairs, but there was no Peter Pettigrew in the bedrooms or the bathroom._

" _Shit."_

 _Peter couldn't be gone._

 _He looped back around the small house again, into every room, shouting the Animagus reversal spell into every corner, under every piece of furniture. No Peter._

 _No Peter._

 _Fuck, there was no Peter._

 _He stood in the centre of the dining room. Peter had been found, Peter had been taken, what if Peter wasn't strong enough to resist interrogation? James and Lily. Harry. Fuck. Peter._

 _What could Sirius do?_

 _He'd have to find Peter._

 _But the house was pristine._

 _Where had they taken Peter?_

 _There was no Dark Mark above the house._

 _He had been the Secret Keeper._

 _Peter was gone._

 _Shit, shit, shit._

 _Sirius sat in a seat, at the completely unremarkable dining table in the unremarkable dining room and let his head fall to the table._

 _Peter was gone. It hadn't been Remus. Peter had gone willingly._

 _Sirius had caused this. Sirius' fault. He'd told James to do this. James had wanted to use Remus. Sirius had been wrong. Sirius' fault. This was Sirius' fault._

 _He had to warn James and Lily._

 _He threw himself out of the seat and back out of the front door, over the gate again and onto his motorcycle. Godric's Hollow wasn't far, it was dark, it was better than risking a Splinching. He kicked the motorbike into gear and accelerated into the low-hanging clouds. Flying calmed him. The rage swirling through his body, the guilt weighing it down, both disappeared slightly up in the clouds and he was able to think a little more clearly. Much as he was desperate to get to that rat, to show him why he shouldn't have been such a fucking little sneak, James and Lily came first. Friends, before enemies. James needed to be warned. They could move, a new Fidelius Charm would be possible within a week, they would be safe._

 _Peter was an enemy now._

 _Peter would pay._

 _Was he a full Death Eater, or just a nasty sneaky informant? Sirius would find out. He had to know. He had to make Peter pay._

 _The wind grew as the motorbike neared Godric's Hollow. It was dark. Sirius wasn't wearing gloves, and his hands felt as though they might freeze onto the handlebars of his motorbike. But he had to get to James and Lily._

 _Landing, there was something not right._

 _People were on the street._

 _Sirius landed and pushed his way through the crowd of people. They were standing well back from it, but they were looking directly at the Potters' cottage. They shouldn't know it was there. Not unless Peter had told the whole fucking village._

 _Not unless…_

 _The ruins of the Potters' cottage rose up in front of Sirius, a hole blown in the sides of the house and the dark swirl of smoke coming from the sides of it._

 _Not unless Peter had already betrayed them._

 _Not unless the charm was broken._

 _Not unless… there were no Potters left to protect._

" _James!" he shouted, as he shoved the onlookers aside and ran up to the building._

" _James!" he shouted, as he ran through the garden gate, that had been left ajar._

" _James!" This one was not a shout, but a choked whimper, as he went through the wide-open front door and found his best friend's body on the ground. "James. Wake up, James. Shit. James. I love you. You can't die."_

" _James," said Sirius, as he crumpled. "James. What will I do without you?"_

"Shhh," said a voice, from next to Sirius. "It's okay, Sirius. It's not 1981. Not yet. We've got time. Sirius, we can do this."

Hands stroked his back, as he groaned over James' dead body. Small hands.

"He's dead. He's dead and it's my fault."

"It's not. It was Peter's fault, Sirius, you know that. And he's alive now, and we can keep him that way… You need your potion. Take your potion, please, Sirius."

He was pulled into sitting position, and a woman with brown hair, who he was sure was not meant to be in the Potter's house tonight, administered a vial of potion into his mouth.

"You're not there, Sirius, however real it feels. It's a fever. A trauma response. It wasn't your fault."

"It was, it was. It is."

"You are a good man, Sirius Black," she said, and he fell back down again.

"Not you again."

"James?"

"The very same. Don't tell me you've gone and died again."

"I haven't. I don't think. Ginny told me I wouldn't."

"Good. Whoever Ginny is, I don't know, but I'm willing to trust her if you do." James Potter's nose screwed up in a look of intense dislike. "Then again, you trusted Peter."

"She's better than Peter. I think she did get possessed by a certain Lord Voldemort at one point, but that wasn't her fault."

"That's what they all say, Pads. That's what they all say."

Sirius was on his back, on the cold stone floor of the ethereal version of the Great Hall, and he sat himself up. James came down besides him, and the two of them sat with their backs to the wall below a stained glass window depicting a rather impressively bearded Godric Gryffindor. It was daylight, and the light fell through the window in front of them. James stuck his feet out into the sunlight, Sirius remained in the shadow.

"So, do you think I'm dead?" asked Sirius. It was possible, given what had gone before, but it didn't feel like it had before.

"I don't know," said James. "Just the messenger, remember?"

"Got a message?"

"None from those in charge," said James. "From me, though, get on with it."

"How do you know I haven't?"

"You look like shit, mate." James reached out and brushed gently at the front of Sirius' hair. "Blood's matted in your hair, you haven't brushed it for weeks. You've got that look of failure in your eyes. And you've been biting at your nails again."

Sirius looked down at his softly-chewed nails. James had a point, if not several.

"It's… harder than you'd think. There were complications."

"Do you remember when we thought the whole thing would be over by the end of '78? '79, at most?"

"Yeah."

"We didn't know anything, did we?"

"Prongs, I still don't think I know anything. If anything, I know less than I did. I'm less certain of what I know, anyway."

"Old age, Pads. Old age is getting to you."

"Thirty seven."

"I'm eternally twenty-one."

"You're dead, James. You're dead and I don't know if I can fix that."

"Technically, I'm alive, where you are now. Unless you've really screwed it up, and killed me off early. And if you could refrain from that, I'd be grateful."

"How are you here, if you're still alive in 1978?"

"Beats me. Have you considered that this is a hallucination brought on by whatever medication that Ginny's giving you?"

"Is it?"

"Not a clue. I'm dead. Of a sort. Have been dead at points, in your personal timeline, even if I'm strictly speaking not now."

"There are two of me alive. Two Sirius Blacks, different ages. He doesn't know about me. I don't know about me. I can't think of that one as me, is it me?"

"It is and it isn't, I suppose," said James.

"You're not very much help, are you?"

"Well, if you're not dead, I'm a part of you, so I would suggest that you're not very much help to yourself, Sirius. Perhaps you need to think about it all a bit less. You're making it more complicated than it needs to be."

"James," said Sirius. "You spent seven years of Hogwarts and several more afterwards telling me to think about things a little more."

"Times change."

"They very much do."

Both of them sat in silence, James staring at his own toes while Sirius looked at the ceiling. The sky was predominately clouds today. Light enough, but not a glorious day.

"James? How do I do this?"

"Kill Voldemort. It's the only thing that will make it stop."

"Have you ever heard of Horcruxes?"

"No."

"Well, he's got one. Regulus got rid of it. Will get rid of it. So, my brother helped kill Voldemort. They killed him in the end, you know. Harry did. Your Harry. Voldemort, that is. He killed Voldemort, not Regulus."

"Our Harry, Sirius. You helped raise him. You were there for more than I was."

"Not enough."

"No, not enough. Neither of us were there for enough of it, were we? I'm glad he killed Voldemort. Fucker deserved to die."

"Yeah."

"I hope Remus got to be there for more of it."

"He died too."

"Shit."

"Got married first. Had a son. I don't know if that's better, because he was happy when he died, or worse, because he'd only just become happy again when he died."

James thought about that. "Better," he said, finally. "I would have gone through death for Lily and Harry any day. Remus was the same."

"All of us died. All four of us. Just Harry and Teddy, that's Remus' boy, left, and that's what the Marauders left on the world." Sirius thought perhaps he wasn't dead. It didn't feel the same as last time.

"Well, you never wanted children. Why us, though, Sirius? Why was it my son he wanted to kill? What did Harry do to deserve that?"

"Nothing," said Sirius. "He did nothing. You did nothing. It was that bloody prophecy, wasn't it, and none of us believed in Divination anyway. Lily, neither. I… well I fucked up, I think. Regulus somehow didn't. How, James?"

"Damned if I know. I'm dead, aren't I?"

"James?" James was beginning to look fuzzy around the edges; his voice was sounding from further away.

"Sirius. I'm always here, you know. Always. In your head. So is Harry. And Remus."

"I miss you all."

"Fuck, so do I, Pads."

"Am I dead?" Sirius asked, but James was indistinct and the sounds he was making were no longer recognisable as individual words. "James?"

James was gone, and the walls of the Great Hall were fading too.

"Prongs?"

Another face was coming into view, long hair framing it.

"Hermione?"

"Ginny," said the face. "Look, ginger." She flipped the ends of her hair out. "But facial recognition abilities aside, you're awake, and that's good. How's everything?"

Sirius thought about that. "Sore."

"Not surprising." Ginny grimaced, looking down at a tangle of metal and strings in her lap. "Ah, fuck this shit." She threw the mess at the wall, and then waved her wand to Vanish it for good measure.

"What was that?"

"A mess. If the question you're asking is, what was that supposed to be, then the answer is knitting. Mum always used to knit by a sick person's bedside."

If that was supposed to be knitting, Sirius thought it was better off vanished.

"Oh," he said.

"Yeah," she said. "Don't try it. Though, now I think about it, you're a man, and nobody ever bothers to make men knit, do they? I'm going to run a few spells on you now, just to check how you're doing, is that okay?"

"Yes," said Sirius. She pushed up her sleeves and began to flick her wand up and down his body, muttering slightly to herself. He thought it was better not to talk too much. His throat felt like there were nails in it.

"All good," she said, with a smile. "Though you're still on bed rest, and you've still got to take about six different types of potion for the next week, so don't go getting any ideas."

"Has anyone told you how much like your mother you are?"

"Many times. I'm not even offended, any more. Much."

"If someone told me I was like my mother I'd punch them."

"No strenuous activity for at least two or three weeks. Then you can punch them. Deal?"

"Deal."

"What happened?" she asked, after a while. "I found you, Luna and I did, near where you were caught by the Death Eaters, and you were in a bad way. All the markers of some light torture, and I know my signs of light torture."

"I…" he said. "Death Eaters." He turned the events of his captivity over in his brain for a bit, and then made a decision. "Can I tell everyone at once," he said, "or can you tell them all? I don't know if I want to tell it more than once, not yet."

"Tell everyone," said Ginny. "They'll want to hear it direct from you."

Not long, but a lot of effort expended, later, Sirius was downstairs, propped on the sofa with cushions and a blanket and a ridiculous amount of fussing. He'd been fed soup and hot, sweet tea, and no less than eight vials of restorative potions, and he was feeling the best he'd felt in days. Which was not exactly setting a high bar, given the whole torture, interrogation, Death Eater captivity thing. The experience had been no worse than any other Death Eater capture, he was sure, and a lot better than some had it given he had not in fact ended up dead, but it took a lot out of a man.

"Are you okay to tell us?" asked Hermione, with her eyebrows folded into a look of genuine concern.

"His stats are as good as they've been," said Ginny.

"He has a lot fewer wrackspurts," was Luna's contribution.

Sirius looked around at them all, the three girls he hadn't realised he would miss until he had been away from them.

"When I was caught," he began, "I was dragged off to some hole. A prison. I think, anyway. There was a Death Eater, Selwyn, I found out his name later. He wanted to know why I had been where we were. That house, in Cumbria." Sirius' voice was struggling with the conversation, rasping, and he found it difficult to speak in full sentences. Still, the story was better off out, and now was as good a time as any to tell it. "He didn't seem to suspect me of anything in particular. I don't think he knows anything. But he didn't believe my cover story completely. So he called in someone else. My brother."

"Regulus?" asked Ginny.

"Yes." Sirius reached for his glass of water, but before he could put his hands on it Hermione had rushed in to pass it over to him. He could get used to this treatment. "Regulus arrived. He… well, I don't know if he knew who I was. Selwyn said I looked like Regulus. He went on about Uncle Alphard's illegitimate kids." Sirius felt like his voice was getting stronger. "They kicked me about a bit, few curses. Not too bad. Said they wouldn't kill me, dump me somewhere. Passed out. Woke up to Ginny and Luna and Remus. Where is Remus?"

"He's not here," said Ginny, quickly. "He doesn't know who you are, either. We don't think he does, anyway."

"So," said Hermione. "We could have been discovered by two people who know Sirius very well, we think they've bought the cover story, but we don't know."

"Not a clue," said Luna, throwing an apple up and down in the air. "Not the faintest."

"It's better than it could be," conceded Hermione. "Sirius is safe."

"Sirius is fine," said Sirius. Luna nodded.

"It was a bit close, though, wasn't it?" said Ginny. "I mean, it was really only luck that we found him."

Sirius' brain wasn't moving at the same speed as everyone else's. They were debating the luck involved in his rescue, and he had something to say, but the words weren't forming right. His mouth couldn't wrap itself around them, either. It was a funny feeling, there being something there but not being able to express it. Stressful. His toes felt funny, as if he was being squashed in.

Their discussion was beginning to sound as if it was a debate they had gone over before, and he briefly wondered if he had been unconscious for a while. A couple of days, maybe, for their debates to have got a little stale without his new information.

But that wasn't what he had wanted to say.

"Regulus recognised me," he said, finally.

"What do you mean?" asked Hermione. All three witches had stopped their discussion as he spoke, turning to face him. Luna had taken a bite out of the apple now, and stopped throwing it. Hermione had pretty eyes.

"I think," said Sirius, slowly, "I think he knew who I was, but thought I was the younger one, and tried to cover for me. But he hates me. Hated me."

"Hate is complex," said Luna. "I wonder if we can truly hate someone we once loved."

"You can," said Ginny, with certainty.

"But a brother?" asked Luna.

"I hated Percy for ages," said Ginny. "When he worked for the Ministry when it was under Voldemort's control."

"That's not the point," said Hermione. "None of that is the point." Luna looked unconvinced, but Hermione ignored her. "Sirius? How sure are you?"

Sirius forced his brain back into the cell, and remembered the look on his brother's face when he had seen the body of Sirius Black laying on the floor, swollen and bleeding and pathetic, but resisting.

"He knew," said Sirius, without a doubt now. "He knew who I was." Regulus hadn't said, he'd lied for Sirius. But he'd known. Regulus who got rid of Voldemort's Horcrux, and Regulus who died for that. Regulus who, the more Sirius learnt of his brother, was not the man Sirius had assumed him to be.

"The obvious solution," said Hermione, "is that our Sirius was mistaken for the Sirius that's meant to be alive now, the younger one, and Regulus isn't any the wiser as to what we're doing. Which is the best outcome. Sirius, does your brother know Legilimency?"

"Yes," said Sirius. "So do I. We were taught, as children. Our mother was an expert. I know some Occlumency. I think it was enough. I'm shit at it. James says you should imagine Quidditch. Bores people to tears. Nothing interesting. No secrets, there. Or only tactical ones. James always guarded his tactics. Some Ravenclaw tried to nick them once. Carnage." He was aware he was rambling, but his mouth which had been so reluctant to talk earlier now would not come back under control. "Sorry," he finished, rather lamely.

"It's okay," said Hermione, putting her hand on his back. "It's been a trauma, for you. You've been unconscious for the best part of three days. You should rest."

"Need to talk," said Sirius, acutely aware of her hand.

"Rest," said Hermione.

"I'll lay down."

"You've got severe nerve damage," said Ginny. "And I'm not going to ask questions, because I know you won't answer them, but most of it's not from this last lot of Crucio-ing."

"Yeah, don't ask questions," he said. There was nothing he wanted to talk about in that. And Hermione's hand was still on his back. He needed to not move, and she might not notice.

"Still," she said, undeterred from her point. "You do need to rest. For at least another week, I would say. We've not got anything in the schedule for a while, so you're not going to be missing out."

"What day is it?" he asked.

"Christmas Eve," said Luna. "If you believe in social constructs such as Christmas."

The flying reindeer decorations Sirius had enchanted what felt like a decade ago chose that moment to swoop down between them all, throwing out conjured snow behind them. Sirius hadn't added that particular enchantment.

"They poo, as well," said Ginny, revealing who had.

"You don't want to see that," said Hermione. "Or I didn't."

"What?" said Ginny. "It's funny." She shrugged. "And it's charm work practice. As you told me only yesterday, education is not just for Hogwarts, and we should be aiming to learn and grow as witches at all times. And after you deemed Quidditch not to count…" Ginny let the rest of her sentence hang there as she watched the progress of the reindeer around the room.

"I think it is inspired," said Luna.

"What do we do now?" asked Ginny, not at all talking about the reindeer.

"Well, I think we continue with our plans," said Hermione, glancing at Sirius as she said that. "We knew this was dangerous before we started, I suppose, and well, maybe there are ways we could make this safer but I want to continue."

"So do I," said Ginny.

"Duelling practice," said Sirius, who had intended that to be a longer sentence. Whether it was his continued inability to control his mouth, the slower than usual speed of his brain, or the little hand still perched on his back that was distracting him more than it should, he did not know. "We don't prepare enough. The first war, we practiced constantly."

"We can assume the Death Eaters practice constantly," said Luna. "That would be an obvious assumption."

"It's a good idea," said Hermione, with the slight air of someone who was trying and failing to find fault in the suggestion. Sirius was certain it was a good one.

"And," he said, "we need better information." There was a half-formed plan in his brain here, but he wanted to see how it went before he revealed the full extent of what he was thinking to the rest of the little group. Ginny would be a safe bet to agree, he thought, but Hermione's views he was less confident of. And Luna was unpredictable, somehow her best and her worst trait.

"That's exactly what I was thinking," said Ginny. "And," she continued, fidgeting slightly and staring at her own hands, "I've got an idea how to get some. So we have to assume, right, that if we're changing things then soon Sirius' little timeline will be obsolete, yes?" She gestured to the piece of flipchart paper on the wall, carefully written by Hermione, as everyone else nodded. "And I met Remus the other day, and, well, after a possibly ill-advised impersonation of one of Mum's cousins he basically invited me to join the Order. I know we agreed not to reveal ourselves to anyone, but it wouldn't be Ginny Weasley, would it? It would be Philomena Prewett."

"Isn't that risky?" asked Hermione, although Sirius thought it was a very good sign indeed that she had not cast down the idea immediately. "What if the real Philomena Prewett shows up?"

"Mum says she only ever met her once. Her dad was a Squib, and he tried to keep her away from the magical world. She was a witch, but as far as we know lived a mainly Muggle life," said Ginny. "It's not risk-free, but it's an obvious in to the Order, isn't it? We'd have to find an introduction for someone else, and there'd need to be someone to vouch for us, and that's difficult without a family connection or someone having been to Hogwarts."

Sirius thought this idea got better by the second, and, conveniently, was close enough to his own that if Ginny's was seen as sensible his own likely would be.

"It might work," Hermione allowed. "It would take a while, though. To be trusted enough for any kind of meaningful information. And it means we're not as independent."

"They never need to know about us," said Ginny. "Philomena is a decent, but unqualified, Healer. That's what Remus thinks, anyway. I think I can use that to avoid most of their missions, if that's what we need, and I can pass information to you lot." She shrugged. "I mean, we won't do it if it's shit, but we're going to need better intelligence soon and I'm quite good at finding out what people are up to."

"Dumbledore is a Legilimens," said Sirius.

"And I'm a damn good Occlumens, if I do say so myself."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Got possessed by Voldemort in first year, remember? After an experience like that, you sort of do whatever you can to protect your own mind from people getting in there without consent. You can call it a practical or a neurotic thing, whatever you prefer."

It made sense to Sirius, at least.

"It is a plan," said Luna, "and a good one. I can continue gaining information from the Ministry of Magic, if that is of use. They are incompetent, so I doubt it, but I suppose it covers further bases."

"Continue?" asked Hermione.

"Oh yes," said Luna, who did not look at all like this was a revelation to everyone in the room. "I've been working there for months now."

"No you haven't," said Ginny. "How could you have been?"

"She's not here much," said Sirius, which was true. He'd assumed she was reading, or doing weird things somewhere weird, but it wasn't out of the realms of possibility she was working for the Ministry.

"So that's why you said that to Remus!" said Ginny, with a tone of realisation. "You never said!"

"Nobody asked," said Luna, simply. "And you did all seem rather busy."

"What department?" asked Sirius.

"Records," she said. "My mother's post. I simply walked in, and said I had decided not to travel after all, and could I please have my job back?"

"And that worked?" asked Hermione.

"As I said," replied Luna. "It is a Ministry of incompetents, and the Minister's department is filled with them. She is decent, the Minister, if close-minded, but the rest of them have approximately as many collective brain cells as a bunch of Cornish pixies."

Hermione muttered something about "fucking Cornish pixies", and Sirius made a mental note to ask her about that at some point that wasn't this one.

"Since when?" she continued.

"September," Luna said. "I told you in October, Hermione. I suspected you were not listening, but it has come up since."

"Well," said Hermione, very much as though she wanted to argue. Sirius privately felt it wasn't worth the argument. They should have noticed where Luna was going, or at least that she was going somewhere, because friends knew what was going on in their friends' lives. He hadn't explicitly realised he considered Luna a friend, not before now, but he did it turned out. Friend. Friends were hard to come by, especially ones you could trust in times of war.

"I'm sorry we didn't notice," said Sirius. It felt like the right thing to say, to a friend.

"That's quite alright," said Luna. "I don't much expect people to notice what I'm doing. And, you've had your own things to deal with, Sirius."

Sirius resolved to pay much more attention to Luna in the future. Yes, she was weird, and she was very difficult to hold a conversation with without him wanting to bash his head into a heavy object, but they just had different opinions on a wide variety of topics. She was a friend, and they agreed when it mattered, and fucking hell Sirius knew you needed to try with friends.

Ginny and Hermione followed his lead in apologising, and in the silence afterwards Sirius decided to make his own suggestion.

"If we have the Ministry covered," he nodded at Luna, and thanked his brain and mouth for cooperating with him now, "and the Order, then we need information on the Death Eaters." Hermione removed her hand from his back, which he seemed to have forgotten about, and instantly he missed the warmth. "And I thought, I could impersonate a family member, and get at least some access. We all know the vast majority of my family are fuckwits, well, everyone except myself and Andromeda at this moment in time, and they have access to Death Eaters."

"That won't work," said Hermione.

"Why not?"

"You were captured," she said, firmly. "Not that you're a bad wizard. That could have happened to anyone. But that they've seen your face. I know it wasn't looking its best, with the effects of the fight and the torture and it all, but you've been seen and you claimed to be a Muggleborn. There's no way we can send you back in."

"It was a good idea, though," said Ginny.

"It was," said Hermione. "Which is exactly why I'll do it."

"You?" asked Luna, at the same time as Ginny said "okay" and Sirius said "no".

"You're not a pureblood," said Luna.

"It's a solid plan, if we're careful," said Ginny.

"It's too dangerous," said Sirius.

"There's no way of testing the purity of an individual's blood," said Hermione. "No less than eighty-seven witches or wizards have attempted to find a test, but because blood purity is a bullshit concept nobody can make one."

Swearing twice in less than five minutes. That was something of a record for Hermione. Sirius could appreciate that as a sign of her seriousness, even if his reservations were growing by the minute.

"And, besides," she continued. "I'd be a half-blood. They'd recognise a fellow pureblood, but a half-blood is good enough to be allowed in but unknown enough to pass scrutiny. And, Sirius, you can't say it's too dangerous because you just said you intended to do the same thing yourself."

"I can," he said, but his brain ran out on him. He struggled to articulate the massive list of reasons he knew were in the back of his head as to why that was such a terrible idea, and ended up letting out "because you don't know how these families work."

That had clearly been a terrible response.

"And you know more, yes? Good. You can teach me. Being a pureblood isn't some kind of immediate knowledge base to how to act within these families, it's not written in your genes! Ginny's as pure blooded as you, and she doesn't have a clue! No offence, Ginny…"

"None taken," said Ginny. "I've got exactly zero clues. Possibly a minus number of clues."

"So there we are," said Hermione. "I can learn it, if it's not ingrained into all of you at birth."

"It's not that," he said, "but…"

"What?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, although that wasn't strictly true. "I just don't think you should. It's dangerous, and they'd hate you if they knew who you were."

"You mean what I am, Sirius, don't try to hide that. We're Mudbloods to your lot, I know." And she got up, and stalked out of the room.

"What was that all about?" asked Ginny, still looking at the doorway Hermione had exited through. "Fucking hell." She looked at Sirius. "I don't think that's what you meant, for the record."

"Neither do I," said Luna, standing up. "I expect you could have phrased it better, but those potions you're on are rather not very conducive to rational thought. I'm going to go after Hermione now."

"Shit," said Ginny. "She's been weird for days. I pissed her off by going after you without telling her, and with Luna, and she's not been right since. I thought she'd have got over that, by now. She says she has."

"It is not about that," said Luna.

"What's it about?"

"He'll figure it out," said Luna, enigmatically, and left.

"Is she always like that?" Sirius asked. It wasn't the question he wanted to ask.

"Which one?" asked Ginny. "Luna, yes. She acts as though she knows what's going on when you don't, and talks in this incredibly irritating vague way, and then usually she does seem to have worked it out before you have. She got me and Harry back together, you know, by being like that. Hermione, sometimes. I dunno, she just loses it sometimes because she doesn't want to say how she feels. She usually works it all out in a few days, and talks to you about it. At, that's a better word for how she does it. And at least she's mostly stopped hexing people when she's angry, these days. Ron still talks about that flock of canaries."

"Okay," said Sirius. It wasn't the answer he'd hoped for. They'd been doing fine, discussing a plan of action and then Hermione had done that. He got what he'd said wrong, of course he did. Or how it had come across to her as wrong, given that he hadn't said entirely what he mean to. She'd of course have been angry.

But really, him? She knew his record. She knew what he'd done, she'd heard him talk of his family in a way he very rarely talked to anyone. He'd gone and trusted her for fuck's sake with some parts of his life he didn't exactly widely share. And now, she was acting as if he was like the rest of his family?

Fuck that.

"Wait for her to calm down," said Ginny. "Explain what you did mean, and then let her speak. Write it down, if that helps you get it out. That's what I told Ron to do, anyway."

"Okay," he said, again. His and Hermione's situation was nothing like hers with Ron. They were in a relationship. Hermione and he were friends. But the advice was applicable, he supposed. "Thank you, Ginny."

"It's good to have you back," said Ginny. "They've both been doing my head in. Quidditch? When you're better?"

He couldn't quite shake the feeling that he still missed Hermione's hand on his back.


	27. Chapter 27: 1979

**Chapter Twenty Seven: 1979**

 _Hermione_

 _December 1978, Saltburn_

Christmas passed without much fanfare. Sirius was very much still recovering, and couldn't walk much further than the bathroom without feeling the effects of his efforts. They swapped presents, small tokens in the main, and watched _It's a Wonderful Life_ and _The Sound of Music_ on the TV. It was one of Hermione's favourite Christmas memories from her childhood, watching those films curled up with her parents. She'd eat a plate of miniature sausages rolls and similar beige buffet foods, followed up with a few chocolates from a tin of Quality Streets that sat on the mantelpiece. It wasn't an extravagant Christmas, but it had been perfect to her.

She'd apologised to Sirius, for her behaviour the day before. She'd known, really, that he hadn't meant that she was inferior in any way. She would have to learn things, if she was to infiltrate even the hangers-on of the Death Eaters. Sirius wasn't the sort to be like that, to have meant it as a slight against her. She knew that. He'd told her things he didn't tell just anyone, and she should have remembered that before she spoke.

He should have been more sensitive about the topic, and he'd admitted that, so she could say it. The last thing she wanted was a return to the hostility of the summer and the autumn, with both of them sniping at the other.

Really she wasn't convinced the whole thing was a great idea, the more she thought about it.

Perhaps it wasn't about Sirius and his reaction to her half-baked plan. Perhaps it was something else entirely.

Perhaps it was whatever had lead her to put her hand on him, and then to leave it there for so long he had almost certainly noticed. He'd probably just been too drugged up on whatever Ginny was feeding him to have thrown her off. That didn't answer why she had been so reluctant to take her hand, once she was touching him. It had been an impulse. It had certainly not been planned.

She wanted to do it again.

They had promised to forgive one another, and to abandon planning until after Christmas. No attacks were planned until early January, by their timetable. Everyone needed a break.

"What did you do at Christmas, before all this?" she asked Luna, carefully poking around in the tin of Quality Street she'd bought at the corner shop for her favourite strawberry cremes.

Luna finished up her mouthful of her favourite, the toffee pennies, before answering. "When my mum was alive, we made it a big event," she said. "After that we had her favourite meal instead of the traditional turkey. Dad didn't much like decorating. How was it at yours, Sirius?"

"Usually a chance for mother and father to show off how well-bred we all were, of course. What else is Christmas for?"

"Family," said Ginny and Hermione at the same time. Ginny liked the green triangles, and had a whole pile of their wrappers building up on the arm of her chair. "And Christmas cake."

"Christmas cake was terribly unfashionable," said Sirius. "Regulus and I persuaded the elves to make us one once. Mother threw a fit."

"Why?" asked Luna.

"She's bonkers," said Sirius. "I need another drink if we're going to be talking about my mother. Hermione?"

"Get it yourself, lazy sod."

"I'm injured. I was tortured, by my own brother."

"That's not quite how you told the story originally, and besides, if you're well enough to drink you're well enough to get it yourself."

Sirius looked up at her, and pulled his best puppy-dog eyes at her. She sighed.

"It works better when you're an actual dog," she said, but she got up anyway. He was something else, that man. If she hadn't known his history for herself, she'd have sworn he was just another entitled pureblood aristocrat who was used to getting their own way in the vein of Draco Malfoy. She knew better, but she still didn't know why she gave in to him so easily.

Perhaps she felt sorry for him.

"Thanks, love," he said, as he took the glass back from her. His favourites from the box were the nut-filled ones, and that for some reason did not surprise Hermione.

"Love?" she asked, as her stomach did a funny thing she put down to the amount of Ginny's badly-made eggnog she'd drunk.

"Don't question me, I'm recovering from torture," he said. "So, why's she wearing a nun outfit again?"

It transpired that none of the three understood the plot of _The Sound of Music_ , and Hermione gave up trying to explain it after her third attempt. Some Muggle culture was perhaps beyond three pureblood wizards.

As they'd agreed, they resumed their planning in the lull between Christmas and New Years. Ginny, Hermione and Luna made a series of scouting out visits to the locations of the next set of Death Eater attacks, without incident other than Ginny managing to anger the small but vicious Crup belonging to the non-Order member who was set to be killed by Death Eaters in a case of mistaken identity. In the end she managed to convince the man she was a Muggle looking for her grandfather's house, but not before he'd pulled his wand on the intruder.

"Well," said Ginny, dusting herself down afterwards. "Hopefully he'll be on the alert for intruders even more in a week or so." Ginny had endless optimism, or so it seemed to Hermione. The further they got into this, the more terrified that they would screw it up she became. Ginny bounced along, unconcerned for any of that.

Hermione began brewing a batch of Polyjuice Potion; it would take a while, but it would be useful to have around. Ginny perfected her flight manoeuvres and broom-back spell casting, and without much success attempted to make Hermione more comfortable on a broom. She thought it was important Hermione could fly. Hermione begged to differ.

"It isn't actually going to eat you," she said. "Fred and George considered a prank line of broomsticks that did try to bite, but Ron and I quashed that one early on. And they're not alive yet, so it's fine."

"Remus charmed one to bite James, once," said Sirius, unhelpfully. "It's easy enough if you know the right charms."

Luna continued reading whatever it was Luna read, and ignoring Sirius and Ginny's increasing cabin-fever.

"Enough!" said Hermione, after a particularly fraught afternoon. "I draw the line at Bludgers in the living room!"

"In the kitchen then, love?" asked Sirius, who had delighted in using that word since Christmas. Hermione had decided to be the bigger person and ignore him. He was like that, Remus had always said he was like that, and it was a sign that he was recovering. Physically, but also emotionally. She almost thought they were seeing hints of the pre-Azkaban Sirius now, a man who made jokes for the love of seeing people laugh, who had a sense of fun, who had aims and dreams and wishes for the future.

"We're bored," said Ginny, leaping onto the sofa and flopping backwards in a dramatic fashion as the Bludger zoomed over her head. "It's too pissing cold and wet for Quidditch outside."

"So am I," said Hermione, "but I'm not destroying the place. And Sirius shouldn't be doing exercise anyway."

"You didn't say that when he was swooping round with us the other day."

"No, because it was better he was flying than taking the mick out of me. Go research ways to immobilise Death Eaters without Stunning them or making it obvious and noisy if you're bored."

"You and Luna are the research department," said Ginny, grabbing the Bludger with both hands as it came in for an attack on her chest and falling off the sofa sideways as she wrestled it to the floor. Sirius held out the box to her, and together they managed to strap it back where it should have been the whole time. How they'd even gotten Bludgers, Hermione didn't know. In her view, they ought to be licensable objects. Heavily restricted. "Sirius and I are more 'act first, think later'. It works for us."

"Rather the point," said Luna, peering over the top of her book, "is that it recently did not work for Sirius."

Hermione could see the whole afternoon was going to be lost to pointless bickering and point-scoring, and put her book down so as to better join in.

Two days later, she announced her plan at breakfast.

"Do you know what today is?" she asked.

"Sunday," said Luna, barely looking up from her current tome on archaic and/or improbable magics.

"New Years' Eve," continued Hermione. "I thought we'd go out. There's usually a big Muggle celebration in London, and I've always wanted to go to one. I know New Year isn't really a wizarding thing, but you've all got a shocking lack of knowledge about Muggle customs."

"There's meant to be a blizzard," said Ginny.

"Have you been watching the weather forecasts again?" asked Hermione.

"So what if I have? I told you before, I'm bored. And, besides, I know that bit of Muggle culture. And _The Generation Game_. And _It's A Knockout_."

"I like I _t's A Knockout_ too," said Sirius, spooning enough honey onto his porridge to rot his teeth on the spot. "Though I don't understand it."

"I'm not sure Muggles do, either," said Hermione, feeling as though the conversation had gone out of control already. "Anyway. Who's in?"

"I think that would be an interesting plan," said Luna. "Nargles hate New Year's. We ought to ward against vengeful spirits. The gap between the worlds is thin tonight."

"That's Halloween," said Ginny. "And midsummer."

They Apparated down to London that evening, using the crowds drawn into the centre of the capital to mask their sudden appearances. Hermione pulled her hat further over her ears as she led the way to a decent viewpoint, Ginny's hand in hers. Sirius swigged from a bottle of beer.

"Just a little bit further," she said.

"Where even are we?" asked Ginny, her Muggle clothing perfect, as usual.

"Trafalgar Square," she said. "It's where everyone goes."

"How do you know?" asked Ginny. "You're not born until September." She said that last bit quietly, but most of the members of the crowd around them were drunk or well on their way, and had no interest in the small group weaving through them.

"Mum and Dad always talked about it," she said. "They used to come here most years." They might be in the crowd now, she knew. They'd talked about being here 'almost every year until we had you, Hermione'. In a month, give or take, her mother would find out that she was pregnant and a baby Hermione would be on her way into the world.

"I don't think it is necessarily my, what is that phrase, cup of tea," said Luna.

"Give it a try," smiled Sirius. "Looks ace."

"Ace," muttered Ginny. "Who says ace?"

As the clock drew closer to midnight, more and more people squashed themselves into Trafalgar Square. It became full of rowdy, drunken people, having a fantastic time. Hermione watched them all, people who had not a care in the world.

No, she thought, that was unfair. She had no idea what these people were going through. It was easy to assume that because somebody was drinking, laughing, horsing around, that they had no reason to be upset. Any of these could be wizards like they were, and experiencing the war. And Muggles would die in this war.

"Beer?" asked Sirius, sidling up beside her.

"I don't like beer," she said, watching as a group of young men attempted to climb Nelson's Column. After drinking, their grip wasn't as good as it should have been, but they were making a strong attempt.

"Try it," he said, with a wicked sort of smile.

She did, and spluttered as she took a sip from the bottle he handed her. "That's not beer!"

"It's Muggle vodka," he said, even though she could have worked that one out for herself. "See, the Muggle police are hypocritical. They don't mind you having a beer on the streets, long as you don't get rowdy, but they'll confiscate spirits. I've got around that."

"You mean they're inconsistent," she said. "And you're supposed to mix this with something else. Cola, or lemonade, or orange juice. It's not supposed to be drunk alone." The men had made it halfway up.

"Ah, but that's no fun," he said. He looked her up and down, appraising her. "Have you ever got so incredibly, completely, utterly pissed?"

"I grew up in wartime," she said. "I didn't have time for experimenting with alcohol."

"And the years after that?"

"I've been busy at the Ministry," she said. "It took me two and a half years of solid work just to pass a bill that improved the rights of werewolves."

"They wouldn't have minded you having some fun along the way, you know. The werewolf I knew would have encouraged it."

"I called it the Remus Lupin bill, you know."

"Remus would have been flattered." Sirius paused. "No, he'd have been utterly fucking mortified and never have let you do that. I suppose it came out after his death that he was a werewolf?"

"Yes," she said. "He was the first werewolf in the history of the wizarding world to have been awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class."

"He'd have refused that, too. He'd have had a whole speech on why he didn't deserve it. Fucker. He deserved it. Bet I didn't get one, did I?"

"No." Perhaps she should have fought for him to get one, or at least a second or third class. He'd fought, too, even if he had been wrongly accused of murder for years. "You got a posthumous pardon."

"Better than a killing curse in the back," he said. "Although on a technicality, I'm not dead, so technically, it isn't posthumous. I suppose they didn't know that." So, you passed a bill that made life better for werewolves? Remus would want you to drink to that."

"I thought you said he'd have been mortified?"

"About the name thing, yes. The content, if it made an actual difference, he'd have been buying you as many drinks as you could handle. He might even have kissed you."

Hermione had trouble imagining the almost always calm, restrained Remus as a man who would hand out victory kisses. "He was married," she said.

"In those circumstances, I'd let a wife snog someone who made their life so much better," said Sirius. "Not that I ever intend to marry."

"Never?" she asked, unsure as to why she was asking that.

"Fuck no," he said. "The poor woman. They'd be in the family, then, and I'm not inflicting that on anyone I actually like. No, it's best if there are no more Blacks, after me. We produce very few who are any good. Compared to the amount that go bad, support all the worst causes, kill and maim for fun, anyway, and those of us who aren't total shits aren't exactly stable and productive members of society. The family is a net bad influence on the world, if not a fucking disease on it."

"You're decent. Andromeda."

"Two of us. Alphard was a good egg, but he had his problems. Hermione, you're distracting from the mission. We are here to have fun, not rehash all the tired old reasons my family are the biggest bunch of shitbags you ever saw. Drink."

She thought about refusing. There was a sorrow in his eyes, and she wanted to tell him all the reasons he was completely selling himself short and make him value himself as a human being. He'd have told Remus he had value, and yet he was going the exact same as Remus did, except replacing the millstone of lycanthropy with one of his family background. Maybe he didn't really want to get her drunk. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to forget things for himself.

She didn't believe in alcohol as a crutch, but one night couldn't hurt.

She took the bottle from Sirius, and attempted to knock back as much of the disgusting liquid as she could. The vodka almost choked her, just at the taste, it was cheap and nasty and the worst example of alcohol he could have found at the off-license at the end of their street.

"Good," he said, taking his own gulp.

"What's the time?" she asked. Ginny had joined the people climbing Nelson's Column, Luna at the bottom watching her. Subtly aided by magic, Ginny was faster than most of the others, and drawing appreciative looks from most of the male onlookers. Hermione suspected that was less down to her athletic ability and more down to her looks.

Sirius pulled out an ornate pocket watch, and checked it. "Five minutes to midnight," he said.

"Nice watch," said Hermione.

"This?" he asked. "It's one of my most treasured possessions. I thought I'd lost it, after Azkaban. I was lucky, it must have fallen off when I was at the Potter's house, the night they were killed. Remus went through the house before the Aurors got to it and saved it. I think he must have thought it was James', because he admits to blowing up most things he thought were mine."

Sirius held out the watch and in the silence Hermione left for him, continued. She took it, holding it carefully as if it was a priceless artefact. To him, it clearly was.

"It says 'Potter' on it, look. And it's got their crest, if you know those sorts of things. They don't matter, so you probably don't. James' parents gave it to me on my seventeenth birthday. Because my parents had disowned me, I wouldn't have had a present otherwise. And they said, some traditions are worth saving, and others aren't."

"They're right about that," said Hermione. Her fingers traced the engraving, softly and slowly. It was beautiful, well made, and suited Sirius perfectly. "Molly and Arthur did the same for Harry," she said, "on his seventeenth. Without his parents, he had nobody to give him a watch, so they found a family heirloom for him. It belonged to one of Molly's brothers, I've forgotten which."

"There are good people in this world," said Sirius. He was watching Ginny too now, as she sat at the top of the column with her legs hanging down, and avoiding Hermione's eye. His eyes looked red, and a little watery. Not that her own looked much better, she was sure of that. Thinking of Harry made her want to cry, and of Ron and Molly and Arthur, and for Sirius thinking of James, his parents and Remus would elicit the same emotions.

They had both lost friends, now.

"What do Muggles do at midnight?" asked Sirius, suddenly.

"Cheer, mostly," said Hermione. "It's seen as good luck to kiss. Dance around, too, there's a song. Auld Lang Syne, it's called. And there's regional traditions, too, like having the first person over the threshold being a tall, dark man, that one's called first footing, or being in the street, which we're doing, and…"

"I like the sound of the kissing one," he said. Hermione's stomach did a tiny flip. It was the vodka, it must have been. She could feel the effect it was having on her head, and it clearly affected the stomach, too.

"It's…" she said, but she didn't have anything else to say.

"Two minutes," said Sirius, taking the watch back from her and replacing it into his pocket.

They stood in silence after that, passing the bottle of vodka disguised as beer backwards and forwards between them. Hermione rationalised with herself. She did not want to kiss Sirius. He was a friend, and a very recent friend at that. Any kissing would be a complication, not just to their friendship but to their mission. And, there was Ron.

She had been thinking of Ron less and less. Harry remained in the forefront of her mind, as much as anything else because Sirius and Ginny liked to talk about him constantly. Ginny had taken it on herself to fill Sirius in on Harry's life from Sirius' death or disappearance in June 1996 to their present day in 2002, and Sirius was hungry for the stories. Ron was a part of most of those, but when Hermione was alone her thoughts rarely turned to the tall, red-headed man she had once thought she would marry.

What if he thought he'd been abandoned? No, she probably hadn't wanted to remain in a relationship with him, but this wasn't the way to end things. She would have wanted to stay in contact. Too much shared history to part ways. She loved Ron. But, she had to admit to herself that she had not been in love with him for at least a few months before her departure from the future.

And they were no longer making efforts to return.

A gold bag hung at Hermione's side, with charms added to make it an almost perfect replica of the little beaded bag she'd carried on that year on the run. It held the black box that had brought them here, and that in their flurry of planning and preparations and everything else that she had stopped researching over a month ago.

The crowd were beginning to count around her.

"10, 9, 8…"

1979 was going to begin, the year she would be born.

"…7, 6, 5…"

Sirius' brother would die this year, unless they could save him, but how else would the Horcrux get from the cave?

"…4, 3…"

She drank the last of the vodka from the bottle, feeling it warm her toes.

"…2…1…"

Ginny was standing on the top of Nelson's Column, Luna had joined her.

"Happy New Year!"

Around them, people were leaping up and down, hugging and kissing and happy.

"1979," said Sirius, beside her. "You've drank all the vodka, love."

"Love," she said, shaking her head. "You'll have to stop that."

"I might," he said. He looked down at the bottle in his hand, or his own shoes, it was hard to tell in the bad light, and then looked up at her. Before Hermione could react, he leant in and kissed her lightly on the cheek, bobbing away almost as if he had been burnt by the process. She reached up and put a hand where he had kissed.

"You said that was tradition," he said, discreetly pointing his wand at the beer bottle as if nothing at all had happened. "And I like Muggle tradition. I didn't get that Outstanding in Muggle Studies for nothing."

It would be nothing to him, she thought. All accounts said that Sirius Black had been a ladies man in his prime. He'd kissed many girls, and almost none of them had meant anything. It was not as if she wanted anything from him. Just his friendship. That mattered to her.

They moved on after the new year had begun, and by this point the vodka was warming Hermione nicely from the inside, and it no longer burned at her throat when she took a mouthful. She wondered why she hadn't done this before. She was happy, and she didn't much care that there was death and destruction at their doorstep once again, and she was slightly skipping on every third step that she took. Ginny and Luna were joining in, and the three of them linked arms and began to skip as quickly as they could down the road, following the crowd as it dispersed away, faster and faster until they were clinging at each other and giggling and unable to control their direction any longer. But it didn't matter, because that was how this night was supposed to be.

"I love you," said Ginny. "You're all the best."

"I love you, too," said Luna.

"I love all of you," said Hermione, and Sirius laughed. It was a genuine laugh, deep and throaty and as if he had just heard something that made him so incredibly happy.

"You're pissed," he said, when he caught her looking. "But that's a good thing. For tonight."

"It isn't," she said, but she didn't entirely believe what she was saying.

They Apparated home, lucky not to Splinch, all four of them landing in a pile of tangled limbs in their garden. Luna and Ginny were furiously debating something, and Hermione wandered into the house to find herself a glass of water. As much as anything else, the alcohol left a funny taste in her mouth, and she knew the theory of getting drunk. Pace yourself, drink water regularly, and don't drink too much.

Going back outside, Sirius had climbed the tree in the back garden. His boots lay on the ground at the bottom. Looking for Luna and Ginny, Hermione saw them were doing cartwheels. At least, Ginny was cartwheeling, and attempting to teach Luna how to do it. Luna, who always seemed graceful, in actual face seemed to possess as much physical grace as Hermione herself did, and was not finding cartwheeling an easy skill to learn.

How had she never got drunk before, Hermione wondered. If it could make Luna Lovegood attempt to do a cartwheel, it was an amazing thing.

"Come on, Hermione!" shouted Ginny as she turned over three times in a row, her balance impeccable.

Hermione shook his head, and went to find Sirius.

"Come on up," he said, as she reached the bottom of the tree.

"You're not going to try and kiss me again, are you?" She hadn't yet decided if she wanted him to, she realised, even though she had thought before that she did not.

"I'm going to try not to fall out of this infernal tree," he said.

Thankfully, her climbing ability had not been hampered by the alcohol, and she chose a branch that enabled her to sit across from Sirius. He had taken off his coat, sitting in the tree in his jeans, bare feet, and a Muggle-style shirt made from a soft grey fabric.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello," she replied.

"Do you look at her house?" he asked, and he had no need to say whose house. The charred remains of Jo's house had been made invisible to Muggles, but they remained clear to be seen to a passing wizard. The Ministry had not finished officially examining the death yet, even though anyone in the wizarding world in possession of half a brain would have been able to work out the cause for themselves. Deaths took months to ratify in the wartime. There were more than the Ministry and St Mungo's could handle.

"All the time," she replied.

"She knew who I was," he said. "She had an idea of my family. And she accepted me."

"So do we," said Hermione.

"I'm sorry," he said, "about the other day. You know enough of my family to know that most of them would think less of you for being a Muggleborn. I don't. I don't at all. You know that, don't you?"

"Of course I do. We discussed this, Sirius, you don't need to apologise again."

"Between my own actions, and those of my family, there practically always is something I need to apologise for."

"They need to apologise for their own actions," she said.

"They won't."

"No, and that's the difference between you and them. That, and you haven't done anything like the rest of them. You've made human errors; they've deliberately tried to make people's lives hell."

"I betrayed Lily and James."

"You didn't."

"Yes, I did. I suggested Pettigrew. James wanted to choose me, originally, but I'd… well, it's a bit of a story but I'd made myself quite a big target by that point. Voldemort personally requested me dead. It wasn't a very good idea. So he chose Remus, instead, who was lower profile, but I thought Remus was the Death Eater. I told James all the reasons that Remus was a bad choice, the worst choice, that he'd give the Potters to Voldemort the moment he had a chance. So James picked Peter. Dumbledore offered, you know? But James said he trusted us over anything, me and Peter, and that he wasn't sure he shouldn't be trusting Remus, too. And then Peter killed James, and I made that possible."

"You told me that, before, in the Shrieking Shack," she said. Sirius had the pained look in his eyes, the one he had when he was confronting a demon. "Yes, you talked James into using Peter as the Secret Keeper. But you didn't know, did you?"

"I should have!"

"Is that what you were dreaming about, when you were recovering?" Hermione thought she was crossing the line with that one. There was an unspoken rule with Sirius; allow him to bring up his issues.

"Yes. I think about it all the time. No, that's not right. It fucking haunts me. I don't think about it, it appears in my brain at all the wrong times and I fucking shrivel up with the guilt and the pain and the fucking anger of it, Hermione. That and all my other fuck ups, and I do need to apologise for them, because I've ended up hurting or killing so many people that it's fucking going to kill me if I can't fix it."

"We'll fix it," she said. That was with far more confidence than she actually had. It was going to be difficult. She had no idea where the Horcrux Regulus would find was, so she was unable to promise Sirius that they would be able to save him. They couldn't get to it, not without him. And the one in the Lestrange vault would be as dangerous as last time, and they'd need to get rid of the diary, which Lucius Malfoy had.

"Please," he said, as if he was begging her to sort it for him.

"We'll do it together," she said. "Me and you, and Luna and Ginny, and we'll make it right. Trust me."

He smiled at that. "Did you ever trust me?" he asked. He'd said that all the time, at the beginning, and no, she hadn't. Not then.

"Sometimes," she answered.

"Liar," he replied.

"I do now," she responded. "And you're drunk."

"From the display we just saw in London, I feel like that's sort of the point of New Year."

"It is, but not if we have to go and see a Healer because you've fallen out of a tree."

He straightened up a bit, having been listing slightly to the left before she had spoken.

"We'd do well to avoid that," he said, and then, "1979."

"1979."

"We had such high hopes for 1979. James was going to marry Lily. Peter was going to propose to his girlfriend. Remus wanted to eradicated lycanthropy, but would settle for not getting fired from his job. We were all going to be there the day that Voldemort was defeated. I was… well, I was going to sort my shit out, and maybe find a girl that meant something, and stand up there with James when he married the girl of his dreams. And be there for Peter when he proposed, and for Remus on the moons."

He swigged from the bottle again.

"We had all these ideas for what we would do once Voldemort was gone. By the end of the year, latest, we thought. We were these young, idealistic men. We had no idea what it could be like, still, even though we'd seen a bit of death by this point. And it was years, and hundreds dead, and we wound up dead ourselves, or in Azkaban, or alone, or fucking traitors.

"Do you think," he asked, "that Peter was a traitor by this point?"

"I don't know," she said, truthfully.

"I want to kill him," said Sirius. "I want to kill him, even if he hasn't done that yet. But that's not right, is it? It's not right and I don't care. I want to kill him, even though he might be right, and I want to save Regulus, even though he's Marked and he might have killed innocents."

"Regulus knows where the locket is," she said, "and we don't. He's going to find it this year." She didn't want to address Peter. She knew this would be coming, the same way that she knew that they would have to deal with the Horcruxes, and she didn't want to do either.

"1979," said Sirius, again.

"I don't know if I have the strength for this," she admitted.

"You do," he said. "You're clearly one of the strongest people I've known." He smiled, and with very careful movements relocated himself to sit on the branch next to hers. "Trust me."

"Yeah," she said. "You're making the branch wobble."

"Don't trust me in a tree, then," he said, and shook it. She grabbed out, scrabbling for a part of the tree to hold onto, and landed her hands onto his shoulders because they were the first things she found. She dug her nails into him as he shook the branch, until they were both laughing and she was almost collapsed onto his shoulder, far closer than she would ever have got to him without alcohol and trees and his ridiculous insistence on going from a serious conversation to trying to shake her out of a sodding tree.

"Stop!" she forced out, and he did.

"Again?" he asked, at the look on her face. His own was arranged into a smile, one that reached his eyes. "On second thoughts, no. Get those talons out my shoulders, girl."

"Serves you right," she said, and she relaxed her grip. Instead, in a moment of not really thinking about it, she put her head on his shoulders and relaxed into him. He was warm, in the December air, and he was comforting. "I do trust you, with everything except trees."

"Wise choice," he said, "I think."

"Do you trust yourself?" she asked.

He thought about that, and his hand went around her side to rest on her waist. "No," he said.

"Well, you should."

He looked down at her, and she looked up at him.

"I wish we could save everyone," she said.

They were looking at each other, and their faces were close.

"Hermione! Sirius! Where the bleeding hell are you two? Luna can do cartwheels, and handstands! We're going to do two-a-side Quidditch, come on!"

The moment, whatever it had been, was gone, and they spent the rest of their New Year's night skimming inches above the garden on broomsticks, all of them except Ginny unable to hold onto the Quaffle for more than a second or two at a time. Of all the things Hermione would regret in the morning, attempting a Quidditch match was the worst of them.

 **A/N: This was meant to be a fluff chapter. It isn't quite, is it?**

 **Thanks again to my lovely beta Rachael.**

 **Trafalgar Square, for non-British readers, is a big square in the centre of London where, for many years, lots of people congregated on New Years Eve. It was mostly before I was born, but it's period-accurate to the turn of 1979. There wasn't anything in particular going on, and no large clock, but it was thing to do in the late seventies and early eighties according to my parents. _The Generation Game_ and _It's a_ _Knockout_ were popular tv programmes, and the film _The Sound of Music_ was always shown at Christmas (probably still is) despite not being a Christmas film.**

 **Normal plot resumes next chapter.**


	28. Chapter 28: The Kill

**Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Kill**

 _Regulus_

 _January 1979, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

Regulus returned to Hogwarts at the beginning of the new term, feeling somewhat as though this was no longer what he wanted. He'd flashed his shiny, green and silver Prefect badge at some Hufflepuff second-years who were irritating him in the corridors on his way to the Great Hall for dinner, but it wasn't important. They'd do it again, and their childish stupidity meant little to the world in any case.

Conversation at the Slytherin table did little for him. He was dutiful to his fiancee, ensuring she had what she needed. All those who mattered he had seen over the holidays, and so there was little to be said on the matter of his pledging, except for the girls continuing to make squeaking noises over wedding plans. Regulus ignored that. No wizard of his stature concerned themselves with the arrangements; that was for his wife and his mother to discuss.

Instead, he allowed himself to be drawn into a debate on politics with Porter, Selwyn and some of the others. Of course, in the main, they agreed on substantive points, and it was as much a question as to how these measures should be implemented as anything else. Nonetheless, it served as an adequate distraction from the stifling air of the Hogwarts Great Hall.

When Adeline stood to take her leave, he used the opportunity for escape.

"Will you allow me to accompany you to the Common Room, Adeline?"

"Oh yes," she giggled. "Yes please, Regulus."

They set off from the Great Hall, Regulus escorting her in the proper manner. Before they had gone more than two feet into the Entrance Hall, he found himself waylaid by none other than the Headmaster himself.

"Mr Black, a word?"

Regulus scrutinised the face of Professor Dumbledore. Old, infirm, weak, with his white hair and beard and embroidered robes. He was no threat to Regulus, but he ought to remain guarded. This man had a reputation, and Regulus had no desire to see personally if it was one that was deserved.

"I am walking my fiance back to the Slytherin Common Room, sir. I would see it as remiss in my duties to abandon her in the corridors."

"Of course. I had heard about you and Miss Fawley, my sincere congratulations. I do not wish to come between the two of you, so I request that you join me in my office after you have returned Miss Fawley to her Common Room, Mr Black. Immediately after, mind."

"I will, sir."

He knew where Dumbledore's office was, of course, but had never entered, having in seven years of Hogwarts been sure to keep himself out of any situations that would require a visit to the Headmaster. It was a point of pride, and one of the many reasons he remained an asset to the Dark Lord.

He could see that there was little point in refusing this meeting; to act as if it was something to be avoided was sure to draw suspicion. And not in Sirius' vein of troublemaking, but a serious one. Regulus was careful to keep himself above suspicion, but some of his associates in Slytherin were not as careful as he was. They could not help it, in some cases, having not been raised well by their parents.

"Why do you think he wishes to see you?" asked Adeline, after the Headmaster had disappeared up the staircase.

"I expect Prefect business," said Regulus. "Although he did not wish to see you, and you of course bear the same honour. Perhaps it is to do with my studies."

"That would make sense," said Adeline. "Unless it is what you have become involved in outside of the school. I know who that was that you introduced me to at our pledging, Regulus."

"Dumbledore knows nothing of that," said Regulus. "And if you are sensible, you will not admit to knowing anything of it either. I am doing what I must, for the good of us and for our families, but my work requires a level of secrecy, Adeline."

"Of course it does," she replied. Her eyes met his, gentle and steady and entirely unreadable. "I am going to trust you, that you see this as something that will not harm our lives. And in that I ask you to trust me. Both in that I can hold my secrets, and yours, when it is required, but also in my judgement."

Regulus considered. His father had always trusted his mother's guidance and advice, and Regulus had anticipated the sort of marriage where he was able to do the same. He did not know Adeline as his father knew his mother, but that would come in time.

"I cannot allow you that at this stage," he said, carefully, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips. "I wish for that for our marriage, very much so."

"You're a clever man," she said. "And I am a clever woman."

That had been a reason he had chosen her, in the end, along with her beauty and her breeding. He had no time for a wife that would sit at home and do little, content to idly gossip. Adeline would run a home well, and raise their children thoughtfully, with time to contribute to society as his mother had.

"Indeed," said Regulus. "Shall we proceed?"

He returned her to the Common Room, and once he was satisfied she was settled, began the long walk to the top of the castle and to Dumbledore's office. It would be an unpleasant meeting, but hopefully a short one. He took a moment to clear his mind, as he did so, forcing the thoughts and memories he would not wish the Headmaster to have access to away and allowing others to swim to the forefront. Those relating to Adeline he allowed prominence, as that was a believable thing for a pledged young wizard to be thinking of. Occlumency was a skill his father had insisted upon, and Regulus could not deny its usefulness. Legilimency, too.

"Sit, please," said Dumbledore, letting Regulus into his office and indicating the chair sitting in front of the desk. He himself walked around the back of the desk and settled himself in the high-backed chair, steepling his fingers as a large, golden ball on the shelf behind him began to emit a high-pitched whistle. "Tea?" he asked, ignoring the whistle. "Or are you a drinker of coffee? I can't understand coffee, myself, but young people have their different views, do they not?"

"Tea, please, sir," said Regulus. Quietly, under the table, he pointed his wand at the cup of tea that was quickly deposited on the desk in front of him. Nothing untoward; no Veritaserum, compulsion potions, or anything else designed to modify his behaviour.

"I had assumed you were more of the old way. Not many of our young witches and wizards pledge themselves to one another while still students here, not these days. I think Mr Malfoy did so, with young Miss Black, your cousin Narcissa, but it is rare. Of course, there were days when more than half of our students would be pledged or in many cases married in seventh year or earlier, but some trends die out, do they not?"

"I am aware of who my cousin is married to," said Regulus, and then moderated himself. "Perhaps that is for the best. The best matches are made with time and care. I would imagine seventh year students do not always make them for reasons of longevity."

Dumbledore chuckled. "I rather suspect you are right, Mr Black."

He took a moment to survey Regulus over the top of his half-moon glasses. Regulus pretended to ignore this, and focused his mind in on his thoughts about Adeline, about his overdue Potions homework, and about the potential for a future within the Department of International Magical Cooperation, while sipping his tea in a calm, measured way. He was not under scrutiny, because he would not allow himself to be.

"Professor Slughorn tells me you are considering a career in the Ministry."

And so did his little delve into Regulus' mind, there.

"Yes. Although I am heir to my family's fortune and dealings, I hope to have many years before I am expected to take over that role. I would like to do something useful and interesting in the meantime, and Professor Slughorn has kindly been helping me in that."

"No more than he should be, as the Head of Slytherin House. Tell me, do you have any other thoughts for the future?"

"I am looking forward to my marriage, and the prospect of children. I would like to continue to play Quidditch, although I do not wish for a career in the sport. Perhaps a gentleman's league alongside my work and my family."

"Regulus, may I call you that? There is a dark cloud hanging over wizarding Britain these days, and I am well aware that boys from families like yours can sometimes get swept up in these things without understanding what it is they are becoming part of. You will have heard of the name of Lord Voldemort, and of his followers. He refers to them as friends, but they are no such thing, and they are recruiting. I believe they are doing so within Hogwarts. I would not be surprised if you have not received an invitation to join them, given that I am certain that your cousin Bellatrix and your cousin-in-law Lucius Malfoy have done so already. Regulus, I would ask you to consider your options carefully in regards to this group. I am always prepared to offer support and safety for anyone, wizard or Muggle, pureblood or Muggleborn, who feels as if they are in danger from Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. That includes through refusing an invitation to join, or through an attempt to leave."

So the old man had very little idea whether Regulus had joined, or intending to, or against the whole premise. He allowed himself to feel a small amount of derision; here was the man who was supposed to be spearheading the resistance, and yet he had not managed to understand who that recruiter was within the school. The Dark Lord was safe for now, if this was his most feared opposition.

"Yes, sir. I am aware of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Death Eaters. I will be sure to come to you if I am in need of his assistance."

"Thank you, Regulus. I must say, if you do know this recruiter, the one I believe to be operating within this castle, then I would appreciate the information. I am not intending to expel the person. I think that would be somewhat counterproductive, do you not? But I do not wish my students to be recruited to any cause."

Dumbledore had recruited Sirius to some kind of resistance group, the Order of the Phoenix as Regulus believed it was named. Perhaps the old man's logic only lasted if it was a cause he did not personally agree with, and it was more than acceptable to encourage students to join your own fighting force.

"Of course, sir."

He would never leave the Death Eaters, and even if he did, then the last place he would go would be to Dumbledore. The man was an old fool, this being an example.

They conducted small-talk for a further five minutes, with the Headmaster pretending to take an interest in Regulus' studies and Regulus pretending that he too had an interest in the outcome of his NEWT examinations.

It was scarcely eight by the time Regulus made it out of the Headmaster's office, as full of disdain for the man as he had been on entering. He decided to walk from there to the castle's library, in the hope of completing that Potions essay. Slughorn would not care, and Regulus would do well in his exam regardless, but it did favours to ensure you stayed in the good graces of powerful teachers.

He took a circuitous route, avoiding the moving staircases and some of the favourite haunts of Peeves, down a set of infrequently used stairs that came out near to the Charms department. At the bottom, he should have taken a left turn towards the library, but there were voices coming from the right. He sighed. It was likely nothing, but the badge on his robes and his honour suggested he should investigate the cause. More importantly, there had been an escalation in attacks on members of Slytherin House last term, and if it was that again he ought to intervene.

If it had not been for the Headmaster's bias, Regulus ought to have been Head Boy. The current one was never there when he was needed, and regarded any fight victimising Slytherins as not worth stopping. Regulus broke up almost all fights; because that was how the badge should encourage him to act.

"What is going on down here, please?" he called, in his strictest tone.

There were Slytherins in the fray, evident by the green and silver scarves worn by several of the fighters.

"Stop!" he called. "I am a Prefect!"

"Come on, Regulus!" called Mulciber the younger, as he hexed again at the figures under attack. "We're doing the Dark Lord's work!"

Within seconds, Regulus' own wand was out and Mulciber was on the floor, paralysed. The other Slytherins, recognisable now as Porter and Alecto Carrow, lowered their wands in response to this.

"What are you doing?" hissed Carrow. The look on her face was one of undisguised disgust. Regulus had never liked her.

"If you were indeed a servant of the Dark Lord," he responded, "then you would know that it is not a game for children to play in the halls of Hogwarts."

He surveyed the three that had been clearly under attack, if fighting back with some skill. Two Ravenclaw boys, both fifth years to the best of Regulus' memory, and Francis. Regulus offered the three of them a curt nod. "Best be on your way."

"Aren't you going to ask why they were attacking us?" asked one of the Ravenclaws, his chin jutting out.

"I'd lower your wand, if I was you," said Regulus. "It looks as though you are intending to attack me, matched with your tone. As far as it looked to me, this was a corridor scuffle, possibly to do with our upcoming Quidditch match against Ravenclaw. Is that not correct?"

Regulus could have guessed better. The three under attack were pureblood wizards, and aside from Quidditch there was one reason people sworn to the Dark Lord's service would attack a member of the pureblood community. He did not know the character of the Ravenclaw boys, but he knew Francis. The Hufflepuff would not join the Dark Lord, Regulus was certain.

However, if the Ravenclaws were wise, they would not voice that. Not in front of another who may have joined, or have sympathy with the cause. The smaller one, blond haired, the one who had spoken, looked as though he wished to say more, but the taller, dark one stopped him.

"Exactly," said Regulus. "It is as I thought. Back to wherever you were going, now, while I deal with my housemates."

The two Ravenclaws scurried off in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower, their robes billowing behind them in their haste to flee the scene. Francis left at a slow, languid walk, in the opposite direction, after a long look at Regulus. Regulus ignored him, turning instead to the three Slytherins.

"I will have to report this back," he said. "I am not best pleased with your conduct this evening."

"We were teaching them a lesson," said Carrow, her eyes narrowed. "Something you didn't seem to be interested in. Perhaps I should be the one reporting you back."

"Do so if you wish," said Regulus. It was his word, a loyal servant for almost a year now, if you counted the time before he was Marked, against hers, a new recruit who had not shown herself to be as useful as he yet. "I will remind you that I am the one that has been tasked with recruitment within the school, and that I will not tolerate my work being sabotaged. It is a delicate process, and one that can be quickly ruined by those without a brain to share between them dealing out unnecessary punishments. I am almost always successful in who I target, Carrow. Do you want me to phrase my report in terms of sabotage? Who do you think would come out better in the Dark Lord's estimation? Someone responsible for many recruits already entered his service, or someone who has failed to persuade any?"

Carrow was silent, which was the best outcome Regulus could have hoped for. She needed to be kept in line. As did the others. Porter he felt had improved, but Mulciber lacked almost all of the necessary skills except the drive. Carrow at least had some merit.

"Sorry, Regulus," said Porter. "We wanted to do something."

"Practice your duelling, if you wish to do something," said Regulus. "Your aim was sloppy. You have considerable power behind your spells, but if they are not hitting their mark they are worse than useless. Carrow, you need to focus on the power. Mulciber, you're slow."

They nodded, Carrow reluctantly and the others more eagerly. Perhaps he had been too harsh on them. He ought to give them more guidance.

"I will help you, if you wish," he said. "I will speak to Slughorn, and see if there is an empty room in the dungeons we can use for practice. Now be gone. I wish to do my Potions essay in peace."

They disappeared towards the bowels of the castle, and Regulus sighed. He understood more of Lucius' complaints now, about the tedium of keeping others in line. Still, his father had taught him techniques, and he could make use of them here as well as in the Ministry.

No sooner had he turned the corner towards the library that he came face-to-face with Francis again.

"Could have taken the lot of them," said Francis. "You were right. Porter has shit aim, and Carrow's weak. I've met slow worms that can think faster than Mulciber."

"Don't be an idiot," said Regulus. "It does not become you."

"Friends like that don't become you," Francis replied, falling into step with Regulus. They passed several wall hangings, depicting battle scenes in the main, and then as they passed one embroidered with a feast, Francis pulled on Regulus' robes and dragged him into the alcove behind it.

"I have a Potions essay," said Regulus.

"Sluggy loves you," said Francis. "I haven't seen you properly since your little party."

"I have duties," said Regulus, the end of his words muffled as Francis pressed his lips into Regulus'.

"You don't want to do them," said Francis, his hands snaking through Regulus' short, neat hair.

"No," he replied. "I don't." He didn't. Slughorn would forgive the essay, he'd tell him he'd been reading some interesting book or other. The other Slytherins were idiots, even the Dark Lord knew that. Dumbledore was worse than an idiot, he was old and mad and of no importance to Regulus Black. Examining Adeline's words to him could wait.

Instead, he relaxed into the alcove and when he came with Francis' mouth around his cock he shouted his name.

Afterwards, and after Regulus had returned the favour, they sat on the stone floor, swapping a hip-flask of brandy back and forth that Francis had brought from his father's drinks cabinet. They were in little danger of a disturbance, as despite the fact that most of the older students in the castle were aware of places such as this one, there was a widely used system to avoid awkward encounters. Regulus was careful to always use it. There was no need for the relationship to be public.

"They were trying to recruit me, you know," said Francis, swigging from the silver flask. "Naturally, I declined. And so they threw the hexes and curses almost instantly. It's almost disappointing how little effort they put into verbal persuasion."

"They are not the brightest the Dark Lord has to offer," said Regulus. "And why do you say, naturally?"

"Because it's fucking stupid. Join up, and what, go kill people that I don't think deserve to die? Torture them, because someone says I should? No, thanks. I'm going to do something genuinely useful, and if I can't, then I'll settle for not actively killing people, Regulus. Why do you think I should?"

"It is what must be done," said Regulus. "The entirety of wizarding society is under threat, can you not see it? Your own bloodline could be lost, there is only you and your brother left."

"It's just a name," said Francis. "One I'm rather attached to, but still just a name."

"Just as I am attached to mine. I do not wish to see it die out, or to have the good name of Black corrupted by those such as my brother. It is my duty to protect our heritage, and surely yours."

"But killing, Regulus? Would you kill for the name of Black?"

"I would kill for what I believe, for what is important in wizarding society."

"I think that's stupid. What if you die? What happens to the name of Black then? It's in your brother's hands then, which is what you don't want. He'd marry a half-blood or something just to spite your mother, and you'd have died on some fool's errand. What does that achieve for your aims?"

"I would rather go down fighting, than remain in a world that is not what I wish for."

"I like living. I like sharing that life with you. You're clever, and you're an excellent Seeker, and you've got the best arse I've ever seen. You're clearly one of the brightest your Dark Lord has, and you're wasting all of that on killing and torturing and likely getting killed or stuck in Azkaban."

"The Dark Lord will prevail, and I will be rewarded. It is the right course of things." He was getting frustrated with Francis. He too was a pureblood, from a good family, he should have seen this. Those that didn't, Regulus assumed were an exception rather than the rule. It was counterintuitive, to stand against that which would only benefit them. There were costs, of course, but anyone knew that was part of having to take a stand for the right things

"Well, I think you're wrong, but I still like fucking you."

They parted ways at curfew, neither wishing to gain a detention on their first night back. Their Prefect statuses would cut it with some teachers, but others would remain all too pleased to dish them out a detention each.

Regulus reflected on his conversation with Francis the next morning, following his routine before he went down to the Great Hall for breakfast and a morning of classes. It changed nothing in his life, not in truth. Francis was denying his heritage, likely because he had no interest in continuing his family name with a witch. He was not ambitious, like Regulus, rather interested in finding an easy path. The Macmillians were not the kind of family that were in all of the right circles, and he had likely missed some of his education on this topic.

It was likely that Regulus would be able to bring him around to the right cause, with time. If the less intelligent amongst the Dark Lord's supporters managed to keep their wands out, at any rate.

He resolved, at breakfast over his usual fare, to owl Avery and update him on the goings on in the castle as soon as he could. He ought to have done it last night. It was not personal business that had delayed him, but rather the necessary work of undoing the mistakes of others. The fact that personal pleasure had been mixed in was a bonus.

As he composed the owl in his head, Avery's owl swooped in and landed a letter on the table ahead of him, neatly onto the green and silver tablecloth.

 _Tonight._

 _As before._

 _Bring those that can be trusted._

Carrow, Mulciber and Porter would not be requiring an invite. He passed the parchment to Selwyn, beside him, with a curt nod. The other boy offered a nod and the parchment back.

"Perfect," was his only response.

Porter ended up meriting an invitation, in the end. He sought Regulus out, discreetly, at lunch and apologised wholeheartedly for his part in the ongoings of the night before. Regulus did some minor checks, just a little peer into the boy's brain, and it was not subterfuge. Carrow and Mulciber had no such conduct; Carrow remained aloof and judgemental, Mulciber ignored Regulus' attempts to make eye contact.

So it was a smaller group that took the path up from the Whomping Willow and into the Shrieking Shack that night, but one Regulus was more sure would bring success. He led them silently, to the waiting Death Eaters, and they took over. He would one day take on a role like Lucius did, of real leadership. Making decisions, rather than providing the people. But this was a start, and he was making his mark, and it was by far better than sitting back like Francis would, waiting for somebody else to make things right.

The time was here to go out, and Regulus felt the excitement. It was in the room; twelve men ready to make some changes. It was in his blood, the faster beating of his heart and the sweat in his palms and the itch in his hand to pull out his wand. He was ready, he was always ready, and whatever Francis said to the contrary this was necessary and right and it was what they had to do. It was for everyone, and it felt right.

They landed outside a house in Norfolk, a small, detached Muggle property with a burnt orange front door. This was a real chance to do something, a woman who was actively seeking to bring down their society. She had married a Muggle, and joined the Order of the Phoenix. She was not to be trusted, she did not deserve to be a part of the world they were creating. She had to be taught what was important.

And if that meant killing her, was she such a loss to the world?

"Regulus, you're our lead," said Lucius. It was to be just three of them tonight: Regulus, his cousin-in-law, and a Jugson. No schoolboys to mind, just three men intent on what had to be done.

"I will do you proud," said Regulus in reply. It was over stiff, too formal, but Lucius inclined his head and indicated Regulus forwards. He took a step to the door, and breathed in. His blood pulsed through his veins, he was ready and waiting. He would be asked to kill, tonight, and he would do that if that was what was needed to secure his future. His own, and that of the Black family, that of Adeline and that of Francis.

He ought not to see Francis again, if he was not capable of this too.

Adeline would understand. Did understand.

He raised his wand. This was what he was made for.

" _Reducto!"_ he cried, and the door exploded into pieces around him, and he was in the house. She was upstairs, most likely, the downstairs of the house entirely deserted he discovered as he prowled the lower floor. He made for the stairs, and she was at the top of them, screaming spells down to him. He parried all of them, he was after all an excellent fighter. She was better than some he had duelled, her dark hair flying as she fought, her thickset frame clad in pyjamas patterned with polka dots.

There were noises from outside, and in flew more people. The Order of the Phoenix, showing up where they were not wanted once more. That James Potter, the friend of his brother, another whose heritage should have made him know better. The old Auror, Moody, a formidable opponent but not unbeatable. And an unknown, a thin, wiry woman with short, golden hair and a ferocious attack. Regulus flattened himself into the wall, inching himself up the stairs while covering himself from the attack from the landing and in the hallway. Lucius and Jugson fought well, and they were beating back the Order in the hallway. Regulus reached the top of the stairs, catching the woman by surprise.

Ceridwen Dearborn, he recalled her name to be, and her list of crimes. She'd killed a Death Eater, a loyal man, and she deserved whatever came to her. She would kill Regulus, too.

He was close, fighting furiously with her.

"Finish her!" came Lucius' command, but before Regulus could act there was a burst of light from Ceridwen's wand. Green, the green that meant nothing except an Unforgivable Curse. He threw himself to the floor, slipping, his feet scrabbling to keep purchase on the stairs. It was his only hope, a magical block would do nothing for him.

The shout came after, only a fraction of a second in reality, but it was much longer.

" _Avada Kedrava!"_

Regulus was safe, the curse had passed him, he pulled himself to his feet. There was a crash, behind him, in the hallway. He hoped it was a member of the Order.

"Shit, Ceri!" came the yell of James Potter. It was not him. Regulus was duelling, both fighting to kill, the spells flying in all directions. As he duelled, he turned, it was Jugson on the floor. Unmoving. The man had been a sacrifice for the cause, in the end, and Regulus hoped that it was worth it.

"Kill her!" shouted Lucius, between spells.

"Shitting hell," came a female voice, that was not that of the woman he was duelling. Regulus half-turned to the noise, but he had to focus. He could deal with the hidden woman after he had killed this one. She had killed another of his own, and he alone could end this.

"There's meant to be four of them!" A man's voice, likely downstairs. "Where's Helena? There was supposed to be a Helena."

She tripped as they duelled, on a loose wire leading to a Muggle telephone.

He had a chance.

" _Avada Kedrava!"_

This time, the green light was from his own wand, and time once more slowed for him, and it flew from his wand in a neat, clinical arc, hitting her square on the chest as she regained her footing. Her wand was rising again, ready to fight back, but it would never do so. It fell instead, as her hand went limp, and her body fell, and she was dead on the floor of the landing.

Her body did not move, as the battle raged on around her. Regulus turned, James Potter, Moody and Lucius were out the door, battling in the street. The woman was staring up at him, eyes narrowed and her wand raised. Regulus stunned her.

He had killed someone. She was immobile, she would never breathe again. Her life had reached its end, and for what?

Her cause was dying, as she had.

He would not suffer her fate. He was fighting for the correct side. Death was something he would greet as an old man.

Jugson had been fighting for the correct side, and he had died.

That was the way of war. Even if it was for the right reasons, people would die, would they not? Jugson would have been proud of his fate.

Regulus would, even while he hoped he would not be that body on the floor, motionless, still, creepy in death.

"Oh fucking hell, this is the worst!"

He remembered the woman's voice. Carefully, quietly, he slunk down the landing, to the door which he was certain the voices were coming from. An ear, or what had looked like an ear on a string, darted back under the door as he approached.

"Someone's outside." The man's voice.

"This is like Ianthe's all over again. Except Ceridwen's fucking dead, and we only had to take Ianthe to the hospital. You said we ought to wait for Helena!"

"That was my intelligence!"

"Your intelligence is hippogriff shit!"

Regulus burst the door, to come face to face with his own brother, crouched on the neat patchwork bedspread with his wand outstretched. Beside him, stood a ginger woman, a Prewett if she was a pureblood, in a blue Muggle jacket with her hair in two long plaits. She too held a wand in a combat position.

His dear brother, for the second time in as many months. Whatever had Regulus done to deserve Sirius?

 **A/N: Eurgh. This is I think version six of this chapter.**

 **Thank you to my beta, Rachael, for fixing my errors, making it generally better, and reassuring me that things are working!**


	29. Chapter 29: Complexities

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: Complexities**

 _Sirius_

 _January 1979, Norfolk_

"Sirius," said Regulus, his voice even and his face neutral. That beautiful schooled expression, the one Sirius could have learnt had he thought it important.

"Regulus." Sirius tried the face out in return. It was the second time he'd seen his brother in recent months, but he was going come off better this time. His hand went to his upper thigh, to the line of the injury Regulus had inflicted last time around. It had healed, partially, but Ginny thought it cursed and said there would always be a mark. A mark of why not to trust your own brother, Sirius said. Ginny was blessed with trustworthy brothers.

"I don't want to have to kill you, so I would leave, if I was you." Regulus drew himself up to his full height, aiming for nonchalance in his voice most likely. It was bullshit. Regulus cared, he always did. The tone was closer to desperation.

Sirius could remember the mantra. A pureblood is always in control of a situation. A pureblood knows how to reach their own ends.

Unfortunately for Regulus, and despite everything, Sirius was a pureblood too.

"I don't want to have to kill you, either," said Sirius. "But I've got no such qualms about your friends. Where are they, anyway? Murdering? Raping? Pillaging? Whatever your lot do to get your nasty little kicks?" Sirius knew one of them would be dead on the floor, in the hallway, and he couldn't really find it in him to care.

"They are doing what must be done."

"And that is killing completely innocent people, yeah? How many have you killed?"

"They are blood traitors."

"Oh come on, Regulus. I'm a blood traitor. I've tried to kill Death Eaters. These people are nothing like it. Ceridwen is a witch who joined what you reckon is the wrong team. She wrote an opinion piece in the Prophet saying that she thought the Ministry wasn't doing enough for Muggleborns who are being threatened by Voldemort, and showing concern for the children harmed by war. The fucking children, Regulus. What did they ever do, even if the sins of their parents really were so bad?"

"They are blood traitors," Regulus repeated.

"Do you repeat everything Voldemort tells you, or do you have some independent thought?"

"I know my own mind."

Of course he did. He'd been parroting the same lines since he'd been old enough to repeat back their parents' words.

"See," said Sirius, "I don't think you do. Mother and Father told you what to think, then those bastards you call friends at Hogwarts did, and now fucking Voldemort does. Have you stopped to look at what you're doing, or are you just following on?"

"At least I didn't follow you."

"I wish you had."

Supposedly, Regulus had cried when his brother had been sorted into Gryffindor. Up until that day, they had assumed both of them would go into Slytherin, Regulus a year behind his brother, and they would share a common room and friends. Sirius had never wanted to be apart from Regulus. So, when the Sorting Hat had landed on his head and screamed "Gryffindor" to the gasps of those in the hall who understood how things had been supposed to go, he had hoped Regulus would follow him the next year. He had not. Regulus walked his parents' path.

"I don't wish that." No, Regulus wouldn't.

"Sirius," warned Ginny, from beside him. The temperamental Extendable Ear, or whatever it was called, that she had made had disappeared under the door again, and she was listening in. "If Aurors arrive…"

He nodded to her, but he had been waiting since August for a moment like this with his brother. He'd be damned if he was going to leave without trying.

"Leave with me," he said. "You don't have to be one of them." It was the worst approach, but it was honest, he supposed. And fucking hell, he knew what would happen if he didn't try, he too was as desperate as his brother for things to fall the way that he wanted them to.

"It ought to be you that is joining me," said his brother, without hesitation. "Stand on the right side of this fight, not with the blood traitors, Mudbloods and fools." He indicated Ginny, who bristled a little.

"Not that bothered about being a blood traitor, truth be told," she said. "But I'm not a fool, and Mudblood is downright fucking offensive, you mangy Death Eater cunt."

Offensive about covered that, too, Sirius thought, but his brother deserved it.

Mangy, though. A weak choice of word if ever he'd heard one.

"Control your woman," said Regulus, almost lazily.

"I'm not his fucking woman," said Ginny, at the same time as Sirius said, "she's not really anything to do with me in that sense, Regulus."

"At least we're clear on that," Ginny said, to Sirius, and flashed her engagement ring in his direction. He'd not noticed she still wore it. A single diamond in a gold band, understated but clearly expensive.

She still had her earpiece in, with the ear on the other end still under the door to the landing, and Sirius' attention turned to outside the room as Ginny's face went white at the noise on it. The second crash was audible even without the aid of the Ear. Fighting, which had appeared to be over, had broken out again, with the clearly heard voice of James Potter attempting to hex someone into submission.

"Don't," said Ginny, in warning. "Not unless."

He knew what she meant, even if he didn't agree with it. There were people they could be seen by with little effect, Regulus being one of them. It was now beyond clear that Regulus' brother knew exactly who he was, but seemed to mistake his older appearance as damage, rather than age. He'd been cautious this time, too, allowing Luna to smooth the signs of ageing and Azkaban from his face with some spells generally used by vain witches. He looked little different, if the magic held, from his nineteen-year-old self.

Which was somewhat of the problem, if James or somebody else who the other Sirius would be interacting with saw them.

"You could," he replied.

"You know why it's better I don't," she said. Talking in code was infuriating.

"If you had not once been my brother, I would have killed you by now. I killed Ceridwen Dearborn, I am not afraid to kill in the name of the Dark Lord." Regulus' words drew Sirius back into the room, his brother staring at him with his wand raised and his eyes hard with a fire Sirius had never before seen in his brother's face. Whatever Regulus said, they would always be brothers.

"Oh, your first kill?" Sirius asked, as calmly as he could manage. He was now forced to admit there was an outside chance his brother might do this. His own brother? Maybe not, but he was further down the path than Sirius had realised.

"I am capable," said Regulus.

"I'd rather skip that demonstration," said Ginny.

Sirius felt like offering her a high five, but the situation suggested that might not be appropriate. Ginny crossed to the window, the Ear wiggling after her. She threw it out the gap between pane and windowsill, and paused to listen, hand over the earpiece.

"You don't have the guts to kill me," said Sirius, not entirely confident of that. Shouts from downstairs suggested James was winning, and that Dorcas Meadowes was back in the fight. She was formidable, and there should only have been Malfoy left. They'd have him fine, he was weak and hated to kill or maim. "You think you're important because you killed one woman, and now you're threatening us. If you'd intended to kill us, then you'd have done so the moment you stepped through the door."

Truth be told, that little speech was paraphrased from a Muggle police film he'd watched once, when Remus had introduced the rest of them to the concept of the cinema. It worked, though. Regulus lowered his wand, just slightly, just with a twitch, but it was lower.

"Shitting fuckery," muttered Ginny. "Aurors! OUT!" The last was a shout.

It was at that moment that multiple things happened at once. Regulus raised his wand again, and Sirius raised his in mirror. They both cast at once, and something exploded, shattering the glass in the now thrown-open window. Ginny fell backwards onto the floor, releasing blood and a long stream of inventive swear words. With a crack, Regulus disappeared, Apparating away to wherever it was Death Eaters disappeared to, and the sound of James' voice came from downstairs.

"There's someone upstairs still, I'm going to check it, Dorcas. The Aurors'll be securing the place."

They didn't heard the rest of the sentence. Sirius' arm had been roughly grabbed by Ginny and they too had left the scene.

With an overly-loud bang, a mark of inexpert Apparition, they landed in the back alley behind their house. Ginny dropped Sirius' arm immediately, and clutched at her own. Once again, someone was bleeding.

"Bollocks," said Ginny. "Fucking shit poo bollocks."

Sirius pulled her hand away from the wound, to see that it was worse than it looked. A large, jagged piece of glass from the window was embedded in her left forearm. Grasping it carefully, he yanked it out, and as Ginny swore some more he carefully cleaned and sealed the cut with his wand.

"It's nothing," he said. "Are you always this dramatic?" She glared. "And where did you learn to swear like that?"

"I have six brothers," she said, ignoring his first question. "I learnt every swear word and offensive phrase they knew, then added some of my own."

"There's got to be one use for brothers," said Sirius, thinking of his own.

"Your brother has far too much breeding to swear," she said. "Although, you have the same breeding. Perhaps we could teach him."

"I don't think he's going to leave them," said Sirius. "I really don't think he will."

"We know he does," said Ginny. "Really, we ought to leave him alone. Else we might fuck that up, too."

They walked into the house in silence. The light, airy conversation about swear words and brothers was not reflective of how either of them felt. Their night had been a disaster, by all measures. Ceridwen was still dead, Regulus remained a Death Eater, and there was the missing Order member. Helena had been supposed to be there, a new recruit, and she had not, and it had thrown them both.

Ginny made a pot of tea, and they waited. In silence at first, in the hope that Luna and Hermione would soon return with better news from their evening's work. With small talk, and no small amount of worrying about the other two, when they did not return. Finally, they began to discuss their night.

"Helena," said Ginny. "The name rings a bell, but I don't know why. What was her surname, again?" She made to rifle through the papers on the coffee table, as Sirius answered her.

"Bridling," he said. "Bridlington? It was along those lines. She was new, she had been in Headquarters talking to Moody and Dorcas when Ceridwen's Patronus arrived to warn of the attack. James and I were there too, because Dorcas wanted to check me over after I'd taken a curse during a reconnaissance mission to Knockturn Alley the day before. So I wasn't allowed to go when the Patronus came. But they took Helena. No time like the present to show someone what it was all about, that was what Moody said."

"And there's nothing that's made it less suitable for a new recruit, not that we've done?"

"I don't think so."

"I suppose," said Ginny, slowly, "that Ianthe Heatherdown went to St Mungo's, rather than being killed. And Dorcas did lots of your medical stuff, and was close to Ianthe, right? So what if she went to visit her in St Mungo's this evening, instead of inviting Helena for a chat, and so she wasn't at Headquarters?"

"It's possible," said Sirius, and in truth it was the best suggestion they had.

They rehashed scenarios for some time. It was easier, perhaps, to analyse how they had been thrown off the plan than to address how they should not have failed, despite that. Their ideas became increasingly far-fetched and unlikely, until Sirius was certain that the whole thing was a coincidence just because they had not managed to come up with a scenario more convincing than their beginning point.

"We shouldn't have got distracted by that, though," said Ginny. "How did we fail so badly?" She had lost the band from the end of one of her plaits, causing it to have slowly unravelled since their Apparition home. She clutched her teacup in both hands, looking at the liquid inside it rather than at Sirius as she spoke. Her eyelids were half closed, her face angled down.

"I don't know," he replied, feeling much as she looked. "We didn't do what we went to do, and we didn't help Regulus, either."

"We had to fail at some point, I suppose," she said.

"You don't look convinced."

"Neither do you."

Luna and Hermione burst through the doors, their faces flushed with excitement and a job well done.

"We did it!" said Hermione, her eyes sparkling. "He's safe, he's well, the Order will move him to a safer place!"

"And all will be well," finished Luna. "But it is not with you."

"Ours? It failed," said Ginny.

"We were never always going to succeed," said Luna, in an echo of Ginny from moments before. "It is worth something that you tried."

"Yes," said Hermione. "You tried."

Sirius removed himself from the room, on the pretext of more tea, as Luna and Hermione recounted their successful mission to Ginny. They had saved someone before Christmas, and two nights ago, and they had celebrated each time then. They had danced in the street, there and then, that first time, because they had felt as though something was happening. And now, even though there had been as much success as there had been failure, nobody would dance.

The failure. It sat in his mind like an old curse wound, there and niggling but not so painful as he yet needed to do anything for it. And there it would sit, until he was able to force it away. He would need to focus. He did not have time to discuss failure, because they had failed, and that was the end of the situation.

In the living room, the three girls had exhausted the discussion of Hermione and Luna's successful evening and Ginny was now telling the story of hers. And his. She had reached the part about Helena, the mystery that was probably simple, when Hermione leapt from her seat.

"Helena? Helena Bridlington? Oh, I should have known!" And she darted upstairs in a flurry.

"Oh, yes, I see," said Luna, entirely unhelpfully.

Hermione arrived back, with a sheet of parchment in her left hand. Shaking, she handed it to Sirius.

"I should have known," she repeated. "Why didn't I realise? I could have warned you!"

"Hey," said Ginny, putting a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "It's everyone's responsibility, this sort of thing." She glanced from Hermione, to Sirius, to Luna, with a meaningful stare, although Sirius had little to no idea what it was supposed to mean.

Sirius' eyes were on the paper, and he then realised what Hermione had. In his hand was the invitation to Jo's funeral, written by a Helena, the same Helena. The woman had joined the Order of the Phoenix because her mother and her children had been killed by the Death Eaters. Sirius had not known that, the first time around, but it was the obvious leap. Hermione had saved the children, with Ginny, and so Helena had not felt the same urge to fight.

He handed the parchment on to Ginny, and turned to Hermione.

"None of the rest of us noticed, did we? And we all read this letter when it arrived. We all met her. You're not to blame. And Ginny and I could have screwed it up, anyway, even if we had known."

"Shit," said Ginny, as she finished reading.

Indeed.

"At least we know we are having an effect," said Luna. "Albeit in ways we have not fully imagined."

"Planning," said Hermione, her words slightly choked. She looked unconvinced by everything they had said. "We need to plan better, next time, we need to make sure that we think of everything, we need to…"

"We need to be getting some sleep," said Luna. "Nothing can be achieved in a state of chaos, when our aura is out of line due to exhaustion and overemotion."

Sirius was certain he saw Hermione roll her eyes at that, and Ginny stifle a laugh. He would not have used the term 'aura', because it was a load of hippogriff shit, but Luna had a point. Nobody could plan well when they were tired and overwhelmed with feelings of failure. They would achieve little but rolling over the failure, and how they had missed it, which was exactly what he and Ginny had done over Helena and narrowly avoided over their real, true failure, the lack of useful intervention. He preferred to get drunk, and start clean in the morning.

He wondered if this was the target audience for that technique. They'd been amenable to it before, mind.

"Drink?" he asked.

"I will be getting some sleep," said Luna, before wafting out of the living room and into the bathroom.

"Fuck it," said Ginny. "S'not like I have a job. Or a boyfriend. Or anywhere to be."

"It's not like we have anything," said Hermione. "We're failing. Abysmally."

"It's one fuck-up," said Ginny. "One. Yeah, it's shit, but we've still succeeded more than we've failed, haven't we?"

Sirius listened to them go back and forth for a while. Ginny had hardly been the most positive when they'd arrived back, or at points in between, but she contrasted nicely against Hermione's downright depressive stance. He stayed out of it, other than the occasional reminder that it wasn't solely Hermione's fault, that he and Ginny had been the ones that hadn't actually leapt into action. But there you were. Hermione was having none of it, on the whole, and Sirius resorted to alcohol.

Ginny gave up in the end, whether deliberately or not, when she fell asleep on the sofa in a lull in the same argument they'd been having for two hours. Which left Sirius with the job of calming Hermione. Not one he relished, although he'd discovered was better at it than he'd thought he would be.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked. "We could go to the pier? The fresh air might help." That was partly selfish. He wanted some air himself, but looking at her, she needed it to.

He put on a jacket, and she dressed in the thousands of layers of cold-weather clothes she always did. Muggle habit, she'd claimed once. Most witches or wizards went with a cloak and a Warming Charm. It was one way you could spot a Muggleborn, not that it mattered, by how much they relied on charms for things Muggles routinely did very differently and that they would have learnt in childhood.

Halfway down the street, she stopped.

"You don't seem that upset," she said.

"You might not have noticed," he said, "but I don't really cry."

"I'm not crying," she replied, which was true. Her face was dry, if impossibly sad. It wasn't quite the point he'd been trying to make. He started off walking again, taking the well trodden path, the one he always took, down to the town's pier.

He lead her down the side of the arcades as they reached it, down between the side of the building and the rail that marked the edge of the pier. He had a favourite spot, halfway down on the left as you looked out to sea. The bench there wasn't wobbly, like some of the others, and it offered the best view in his humble opinion. He sat on that bench, and indicated to her to join him.

"Nice, isn't it?" he said.

"It's a bench."

"I know this is hard," he said. "I wonder if we could have done something better about almost everything I've ever been involved in."

"If I'd done things differently at the battle, at Hogwarts, I might have been able to save Remus," she said. "Or Tonks. Or Fred, or anyone."

"And that," said Sirius, "is the way madness lies. And I would know. I think I went mad for a bit, back in the nineteen-eighties. Most of the eighties, really. Not so much for a bit as for a decade."

She stifled a laugh into her striped scarf. "I thought you were the one that wanted to redo everything to prevent James from dying?"

"I was. I do. But, we have a real actual chance. There was nothing you could have done for them, was there? There's nothing we can do for Ceridwen, tonight. And I had to leave Regulus."

"Was he there?"

"Turns out he killed her."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"His shit, not mine. Not my circus, not my thestrals. He's not really my problem. He has made it clear multiple times over the years that I do not get to make his decisions for him."

"No." She looked at him, then out to sea, then back at him. "Nobody gets to make anybody else's decisions, or they shouldn't. But it doesn't mean you can't want them to make better ones."

"You should talk to my mother about that," he replied. "Mother believes you absolutely can make people's decisions for them."

"Your mother is a bitch," said Hermione, with a level of anger Sirius hadn't been expecting.

"You've got that right," was all he said in response.

He looked out to sea, and so did she. The fresh air was helping. He really wanted to transform into a dog, and just not think for a bit. He wondered if Hermione would play fetch with him. James had always refused to, he had needed Remus or Peter for that. The odd Muggle he could convince that he was a loveable stray. Ha. Mother would enjoy the fact that a Muggle had found him loveable. She'd have a fucking fit. She'd frequently said he was unloveable.

"Shit, Sirius," said Hermione, eventually. "We're fucking it up."

"Swearing doesn't suit you," he said, idly, not sure what else to say. "And we're not. We're having, what was it Ginny said? A setback."

"I don't bloody care if swearing suits me!" she shouted, standing up from the bench and slightly stamping her feet in her little boots. It was almost comical. He fought back the inappropriate urge to laugh. "It's all going to shit!"

"It's one evening," he said. "One person died. Two, if you count Jugson, but he's a Death Eater. So I don't."

"One person too many!" she said. "Two people too many!" She looked as though she would crack into a thousand tiny pieces and fall through the slats of the pier, or else melt.

He stood up too, and in a moment once again of not really being sure what to do or say he wrapped his arms around her. Her breathing was fast, irregular, and her chest warm against his own. He felt it calm and slow, as she continued to shout about failure into his jacket. This was a contrast, he thought, from how she had been before. Adamant they shouldn't intervene, that these people should die because they had died before, because of the delicate balance of their eventual victory over Voldemort.

It would not be a good tactical move to remind her of that, he supposed.

Why exactly did he always come up with twice as many inappropriate things to say than useful ones?

"I'm sorry," she said. "You'll think I'm useless."

"Useless is when you run around killing people on our side."

"No," she said. "That's worse than useless. That's a liability."

"Semantics," he said, wondering if this fell into the category of inappropriate. He never really thought about this before, about how often he got these things so wrong when trying to comfort people. Perhaps he hadn't cared much before. Perhaps this was that much-vaunted maturity people talked about.

"It isn't," she said. "These things are important." She extracted herself from his jacket, and wiped at her eyes with the ends of her scarf. "I just… I don't like that we are trying, and people are still dying. What if this happens again when it's important. Oh, Christ. Everyone is important. I mean some we care about more than other people. Which is just horrible, because we should care about everyone equally, they all matter. But we don't, do we? Does that make us horrible? Do I even care about Jugson?"

"I don't think so," he said. "It's natural. Humans are built that way. We can't care about everyone to the level we care about our best friends, we'd explode."

"I feel like I might," she said. Her hand lingered on his shoulder, as she stood a little further from him. "Do you ever feel like that?"

"Mostly when I think about fucking Pettigrew. Though that's with anger, and I don't know if it's the same thing."

"It isn't," she decided. Her eyes flicked from him out to the sea. "Look. There's a boat."

"Still hate boats," he said.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry."

He leant on the railings, kicking at the base of them with his boots. "It's okay. I do have quite an impressive back story. I'd forget half of it, if it wasn't my own. I'm not sure I'd believe it, if I hadn't lived it."

"I understand that. My own parents seemed to think I was making things up, about Hogwarts, about Harry especially, until I stopped telling them. I kidded myself it was for their own safety. They'd be better off not knowing what I was doing, half the time, and they'd be safer if they didn't have any information. But, really, it was because I didn't want them to think I was mad."

"We're all mad here," said Sirius.

"That's Alice in Wonderland."

"Remus bought me a copy some years ago. He'd grown up with his mother reading him Muggle books, and he thought I'd like that one. I did. I was always a fan of the surreal. Until my life became more that way than I'd wanted it to."

"My mum read me that book, but we only ever got halfway through. I hated it."

"What's not to like?"

"All of it. It doesn't make any sense. Alice is trapped, and she can't get out, and it's… it's all jumbled up and everywhere and I just don't like it."

"It's an escape," he said. "That's the point."

"Somebody died," she said, in a tone of disbelief. "Two people died. And we're here talking about literature."

She started to cry, leaning up against the railings next to him. Sirius supposed she did have a point. Not that he knew what to do about it. He'd tried a hug, already, and it hadn't seemed to help. She'd stopped crying, and then they'd talked about books, and she'd started again. Women didn't make sense.

"Hermione?" he tried. "Do you want another hug?"

"I want for everything to go back to how it was. I didn't want to come back here. I didn't want to have to do all of this. And I still don't, but I couldn't have lived with myself if we hadn't, what was I thinking before?" She picked up a stone from the pier, a sharp pebble, and threw it down into the water where it landed with a soft splash. "What was I thinking? I wanted to kill people, because I thought for some reason it was the right thing to do!"

He had no idea what to say, as she went for another stone and hurled it as far as she could into the water. And another one. Faster and faster she scrabbled for stones and threw them, until she was sat on the wooden slats of the floor below them, panting, searching for stones that were no longer there.

"Sirius," she said. "Why is this so hard?"

It was a beg for answers, and he had none. He decided to go for the hug. Crouching down on the floor beside her, the pier damp with the spray coming up from the sea, he put his arms back around her in the least awkward way he could come up with.

"It's our life. It's shit. But it's what we've been dealt." That didn't cover what he was trying to say. "I don't think it's fair. Somebody else ought to deal with some of it for us. But that's not how these things work."

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I."

She turned, and faced into him, her head snuggled into his chest.

"Do you think we're doing the right thing?"

"Of course I do," he said. Whatever he'd doubted over the last few months, he'd never doubted that. Methods, yes. Timings, certainly. But the essential idea of trying to fix things, to make it right, being the right thing to do? Never.

"I do, too."

"Mmm-hmm." Sirius was avoiding thinking. He didn't do well with this sort of thing. He fucked it up. He'd duelled Remus, once, twice perhaps, over women, because his friend had always assumed Sirius would get the girl. As if. Sirius had failed with as many girls as he had succeeded with, and usually at the point where he tried to think, or talk, or do something rather than fly his broom around or do a prank or borrow a t-shirt from James so it fitted tighter. He knew how to deal with that. Teenagers, that was. Women, actual proper adult women, weren't impressed by that sort of shit. Were they?

He didn't know how to deal with Hermione, and he didn't know if he wanted to. Did he?

She didn't like broomsticks, much.

He'd said he didn't. He'd almost kissed her, that night they'd been out for the new year, when they were talking in the tree in the garden of the house. He'd nearly done it, and then he'd thought, no. Because she wouldn't want to, and it would complicate things. He didn't want it, and it wouldn't happen, anyway.

And he wasn't here for a relationship.

She was getting so very close to him.

Her hand reached up and touched him on the shoulder. He liked it there.

She looked up, blinked twice, and kissed him.

There was a moment where Sirius had very little idea what was happening, and then he was kissing her back. Her hands laced around his back, stroking his neck and then disappearing into his hair.

Why had he been trying to pretend he didn't want this? Any idiot would want this. Her lips were perfection, soft despite the sea air. His hands went around her back, one pulling her in closer to his body and the other sliding up towards her neck. Her hair felt rough, slightly damp from the spray, and she smelt of salt off the sea and sweat from her evening's fight. He quite liked that.

She opened her mouth, and he was all too willing to poke the tip of his tongue in. She might see sense, and it might be his only chance to kiss her.

Hermione's hands were running up and down his back, and he made a small and not very manly noise at the feel of it. He loved that.

There was the taste of salt on his tongue.

"Hermione, stop," he said, pulling away.

"Shit," she said. She took several steps back. "Don't you like it? I'm sorry, I didn't realise you didn't want to…"

"No, I do," he said. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he didn't like her. He wanted this, he thought he did, anyway. "I just can't kiss someone who's crying. It feels wrong. It makes me feel like I'm taking advantage of you."

She laughed. "I can see how you feel."

"Here." Sirius reached over and brushed the tears off her cheeks. "D'you want a tissue? Not that I have any." He'd never felt the lack of one before, particularly.

"I've got one. Mum always made me carry one. She used to try and stuff them up my sleeve on days out."

"Much better," said Sirius when Hermione's face was dry again, if still a little blotchy and red. "Now I feel a bit less like the weird, manipulative bastard who preys on crying women. Want to try it again?"

His nerves, asking that. It was often assumed Sirius Black had no fear with women, given what he'd been like at school. But that was eighteen years ago, and it appeared Sirius Black had forgotten what the hell to say to women.

'Want to try it again?' It was a crap line, too. The worst. In fact, he was sure he'd used it in fifth year more than once, and it had resulted in a few repeat events and at least one kick in the snitches.

While he was examining his choice of words in great detail, forensic fucking detail, at risk of getting himself into a tangle rather than doing anything useful, Hermione had clearly made her decision.

Her lips met his again with enough force to nearly knock him backwards. He ought to pay attention in future. That was quite difficult now. Hermione was very much distracting. Her soft body was squashed into his, he could feel her boobs against his chest. He was going to have to move in a minute, in case she felt something that would highly embarrass him and be incredibly inappropriate in this situation.

But he didn't want to, not yet. The skin on the back of her neck was the smoothest he'd ever felt. Her hands snaked down his back and one of them paused, then gently ran itself over the denim of his jeans to skim over his arse. Fucking hell, it was usually him who went for the arse first. He ought to reciprocate.

Or was that presumptuous? Had the rules for this sort of thing changed between 1981 and Hermione's future?

She pulled away.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Whatever for?"

"Assuming you'd want to kiss me."

"Hermione, I have something to… shit, it's been fifteen fucking years."

"Fifteen years for a kiss, or…?"

"Well, both. Azkaban doesn't have much option for kissing, unless I wanted to snog a Dementor. Which I've been informed by no less a reliable source than Albus Dumbledore is a bad idea."

"I don't understand how you can joke about that," she said. Her hair had a life of it's own, thick and fluffy from the breeze off the sea. "It almost happened to you, the night we let Peter Pettigrew free."

"It almost happened three times," he said. "Crouch wanted me to get the Kiss when I was arrested for Pettigrew's death. He was prevented from doing so by Mad-Eye Moody and Amelia Bones in the Auror Department, who took it to the Minister. Apparently, they convinced her by saying the Kiss was too good for me. I ought to suffer. And the second time was when I was on the run. Got a bit too close to one of the ones outside Hogwarts, and managed to transform in time." He paused. "They say too much exposure to something horrific can make it no longer scare you."

"Muggles use it as therapy," said Hermione. "There's scientific evidence."

"I tried to work out what science was for a Muggle Studies project," he said. "Never did manage it."

"It's really just about how the world works," said Hermione. "And testing. You come up with an idea, a hypothesis, and you work out a series of tests to establish if your hypothesis is correct."

"It sounds like a lot of work," he said. "My hypothesis is, you quite liked kissing me."

"And how would we test that?" she asked.

"I can think of a few ways."

And they did. He enjoyed it, whatever the results of Hermione's science. The feel of her against him, the taste of her mouth on his, the movement of her hands along his back, everything. It was perfect. It was better than perfect.

Which, ultimately, meant that it would not last.

"We should go back," she said.

"Yes."

They stood up, and there was a brief moment where they stood and they looked at one another. He was half-expecting to see a look questioning it all on her face, a look that showed she did not understand what could have possessed her to do such a thing. It wasn't there. She had the tear tracks down her face, still, but she was not unhappy. If anything, the opposite.

He made a decision, and he grabbed for her hand. She looked down at their hands joined, but he did not. She left it there, her hand wrapped in his. A sign of something, even if he was not sure what.

They were halfway back to the house before either of them spoke.

"Stay with me?" she asked.

It wasn't an invitation for anything, he knew that. He wasn't sure if he wanted that, even. It had been so long.

"Yes."

They let themselves in. They draped a blanket over Ginny, still asleep on the sofa. Hermione changed into pyjamas in the bathroom, and Sirius followed her lead in that. They got into her bed, magically stretched from what it had been, and they lay next to one another, with Sirius at least unsure of what the next move ought to be. This wasn't covered in anything he'd ever learnt about witches.

"Do you think," she asked, "that we are doing the right thing? Not in the essence of it. In the methods, is that how you put it earlier?"

Sirius thought about it, as she stared up at the ceiling beside him, waiting for his answer. He still believed in this, yes, the saving of individuals from the clutches of people like his brother.

"I've often thought the most dangerous Death Eaters were those like my cousin, the mad ones, the ones who would tip out of control in a fight. Perhaps they're not. Perhaps the dangerous ones are the ones like Regulus, who would follow the orders given without questioning them, really." She nodded, and he continued. "I don't know. We've seen how not to do it, haven't we, how it was done the first time around. But we don't really know how to do it any better."

It didn't answer her question, but it was what his brain was capable of as the sun began to peek around the edges of her curtains.

"We ought to sleep," she said. "I usually take a potion. Do you mind if I do?"

"Course not," he said. That made their status clear, anyway.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't sleep without them. It's not an addiction thing. Several Healers have recommended it, and I try every so often without, and…"

"Don't worry."

She sat up, and uncorked a tiny bottle that had been sat on her windowsill before swallowing the contents in one go.

"Thank you for staying with me," she said, laying back down, arranging the covers, and slipping her hand into his underneath them. "I didn't want to be alone."

Sirius had never liked being alone.

He awoke to her sitting on the end of the bed, dressed for the day with her hair tied back and her nose in a book.

"Morning," she said, when she saw him. "I've been thinking. I don't think we should do that again. Not that I hated it, but you know. I'm not sure either of us were in our right mind, last night, and it's probably better if we forget about it."

"Okay," he said. The clock by her bedside said it was two in the afternoon.

"Ginny and Luna are already awake," Hermione continued, her face as impassive as Regulus had ever managed. "We're going to do some planning. We're going to need you, are you okay for that?"

"Of course,' he said, something in his head spinning. She left the room. This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted… well, he wanted a repeat of last night, at the very least, and the chance to see what it could become. He hadn't thought he did. But he did, and there they were, and now there they weren't again.

He dressed, without much care, and stomped down the stairs. As he entered the living room, Ginny raised her eyebrows questioningly. He ignored her, flopped onto the floor, and avoided looking at Hermione and her fucking idiotic planning and her even bloody stupider flip chart paper. Where the fuck was the problem with parchment?

"Are we ready?" she asked, in a chirpy voice. "Luna and I think we should start with a way to get more reliable information. I think we agreed before there was a potential role for Ginny, there, didn't we?"

Sirius ignored her, and began to pull apart the rug.

 **a/n: Once again thanks to Rachael.**


	30. Chapter 30: Philomena

**Chapter Thirty: Philomena**

 _Ginny_

 _January 1979_

This was not Ginny's idea of fun. It was raining, for a start, and she was lurking outside the bakery in Godric's Hollow, hoping that she wouldn't catch a glimpse of Lily and James Potter while she waited for Remus. His timekeeping was apparently shit. It had improved by the time she'd originally met him, but right now, it was shit.

It was supposed to be their second meeting. He'd been late for the first, too, after she'd owled him as Philomena Prewett to ask for more information about the Order. Not that she'd called it that. She'd written up a whole list of what she was allowed to admit to knowing, and a second with what she wasn't, and then got Hermione to enchant it to appear as a shopping list if anyone but herself was to read it. Ginny could have done it herself, but Hermione was better at fiddly spells.

She ought to have used an Impervious Charm on her hair. This was ridiculous. She wasn't a girl who cared much about her appearance, exactly, but she didn't like to feel as though she'd fallen in the Hogwarts Lake again. Wet was uncomfortable, and it suited few people, and none of those people were her.

"Sorry I'm late," said Remus, shuffling up to her. "Umbrella?" He handed her his own, and Ginny pulled a face but took it nonetheless.

"Don't worry about it," she said. She'd managed to keep most of the grumpiness out of her voice.

"Are you ready to go, or do you need to do anything else first?"

"I'm ready." If she waited any longer, she'd probably get so bored that she'd screw this up.

Remus led the way onto the residential streets of Godric's Hollow. Ginny saw James and Lily's cottage as they passed, not yet protected by the Fidelius Charm. The one that would be their undoing, rather than a protection, in the end. Harry would have liked to have seen it this way, she thought. It was a pretty house, with a neat garden and a blue-painted front door. If they did this right, he'd grow up there.

He'd probably not fall in love with her, but stranger things had happened.

"It's just down here," said Remus. "Nervous?"

"Not really," she lied. Not because of meeting some relations she'd never met, which was true of Philomena, too, but the fact that half of the success of this whole project, at least, was riding on her. If she fucked up, there was a going to be a hell of a mess to clear up. Metaphorically. A literal mess would be, well, worse. And possible. And likely the point to run, before Hermione turned her into a mess.

Remus stopped outside a small house, one with few discerning features except an oversized lion doorknocker and rapped on the door. The lion's eyes blinked.

"What are you ignoring me for?" it asked. "Fucking Hufflepuff, I'll be betting you. Hufflepuffs never use the knocker."

"I refuse to use anything that insults my dress sense," said Remus, curtly.

It was Ginny's turn to blink rapidly, as Remus was drawn into a lengthy argument with the doorknocker. It appeared that this was not their first interaction.

"Oi, Lupin, not falling out with Leo again, are you?" The door had opened, revealing one of her uncles. The family resemblances ran strong through the Prewett family, and this Prewett had the exact look of Charlie, with only slightly fewer scars but a much better sense of fashion. For the 1970s, at least.

"Your doorknocker is a twat," said Remus. "I'm not visiting again."

"You will, you will. Is this my cousin, the one you were telling me about?"

"Philomena Prewett," said Ginny, holding out her hand. It was roundly ignored by whichever uncle this was, who instead enveloped her in a hug.

"None of that formality," he said. "You're family. I'm Gideon, by the way. Fabian's finishing up something, he'll be down in a moment. Come in, come in. I've got a brew on, and Molly's sent over some biscuits. I think she's bored, truth be told. The twins are a year old, now, she's trying to get Arthur to agree to another one."

"Is that your sister?" asked Ginny.

"Yeah, older than us. She's got, how many, five children now? All boys. Four of them are terrors, and the other one's weirdly well behaved. Creepily so. Can't get my head around him. You'll have to meet them, sometime. Maybe not for a while. Or you might never come back."

"I question why I come back,"" said Remus, closing the door behind them as they crowded into the hallway.

"You love us, Lupin," said Fabian, or who Ginny assumed was Fabian, from the stairs.

They went into the kitchen, a large, warm room filled with the smell of freshly baked biscuits. It had none of the other trappings of a cosy home, though, being otherwise mostly filled with unclean laundry, undone washing up and a variety of items that clearly did not belong here. Ginny wasn't the best of housekeepers, no, but even Sirius managed better than this.

"Ah," said Gideon. "Fabian, I told you to tidy up!"

"And I told you to, but you never listen."

Remus waved his wand, with a long suffering smile at Ginny, and the stuff disappeared.

"What have you done with it?" asked Fabian. "Not that any of it was mine, of course. But out of interest."

"I've used the Sirius Black method of household management," said Remus, pocketing his wand. "Banish it all to the loft, then summon whatever it is you need. I live with the git, for my sins, I've had to deal with him since I was eleven, and it's either this method or live in his filth."

Ginny had seen evidence of how eighteen-year-old Sirius lived, and she had to say that the thirty-seven-year-old model was a massive improvement. Not that she was here to discuss this. So far, all she'd discovered in terms of verifiable facts were that her uncles were not up to the standards of their sister in terms of cleanliness, and that they enjoyed novelty doorknockers. None of that was any use to her. Not really.

They sat around the kitchen table with mugs of tea, and Molly's biscuits, and Gideon and Fabian talked about Molly and about some of their other family members. It was certainly nice to hear the stories, especially the ones that there wasn't a hope her mum would ever have told them. She'd certainly never heard about the time her mum had gone to Hogsmeade with a Slytherin, and a Malfoy cousin at that.

"So, Philomena, what made you come and find us?"

"My father would never let me go to Hogwarts, even though my letter came," she started, having carefully rehearsed this with Luna yesterday. "So I'd never met another wizard until recently. I wanted to join the wizarding world, so I started going into Diagon Alley, and made some friends there. I knew about you, but never knew how to find you, until I ran into Remus on a camping trip with my friends. He said he knew you, eventually I decided to get in touch with him and ask to meet."

"Nice," said Fabian. "We are always worth meeting. Me, especially." He winked.

"I'll have you know," said Gideon, "I get far more interest than you do."

"Merlin," said Ginny. "Are they always this bad?" She turned to Remus, as the two Prewetts continued to bicker amongst themselves.

"Pretty much," he said, draining the last of his tea. "I'm sorry about them."

"I've met worse," said Ginny, thinking of Fred and George. She tried not to do that, too often. She'd not really thought about what she'd do were she to be invited to visit her parents' house.

"Oh, yeah? Did you spend a lot of time with Muggles, then, if your dad wouldn't let you go to Hogwarts?"

"I went to a Muggle secondary school, yes. I've got O-levels."

"How come you've got a wand? And you know magic. Remus says you do, anyway."

"Gideon!"

"Oh, come on, Fabian, you want to know all this too."

Ginny smiled, and continued with her prepared answers. They'd been careful this time, to think of everything. "I signed up to a Kwickspell course, once I turned seventeen and was able to make my own choices. And I bought it, at Ollivander's. I'm not perfect, but my friends have been helping me. I'm interested in Healing spells and charms, so I've done lots of research on them."

"That sounds really impressive, actually."

"Fabian's rarely opened a book in his life."

"Doubt Gideon knows what one is."

"I'd like to help," she said, in an attempt to derail the two Prewetts. She knew about distracting people who went off on one like that. She missed it.

"Remus, what have you told her?" asked Fabian. "And have you cleared it with Albus?"

"Albus knows," said Remus, and Ginny breathed a sigh of relief. Her new persona wasn't so useless that it had fallen apart already. Dumbledore would certainly have done no small amount of digging. Some would say the man was thorough and cautious, others would say nosy and overbearing. Ginny thought it was entirely possible he was all of those things.

"Besides," Remus continued, "she discovered some of it for herself. You know how I met her. She knows her stuff, even if it is almost entirely from books, and she'd be helpful to Dorcas."

"Up for testing that book knowledge properly, some time?" asked Gideon.

"Wouldn't be here if I wasn't," said Ginny. She relaxed, a little. This was going well, or so she thought. And trying to wheedle her way into, and information out of, the Order was something she'd done before, after all.

"She'll have to meet Moody," said Fabian. "And Albus, if he's got time. And Dorcas. If those three don't agree, it isn't happening. No offence, cousin, but I'm not in charge and I'm smart enough to know it."

"Who is in charge?"

"Dorcas," said Remus.

"Albus," answered Gideon.

"Oh, come on," said Remus. "Yes he's the one who set it up and named it, but you come to meetings. If Dorcas doesn't want it, it doesn't happen."

"I heard Voldemort was after her, personally," said Fabian, creasing his brow as he spoke. "She fought him, you know. Injured him, from what I heard."

"I was there," said Remus. "We've not seen him out in the field since, unless you know something I don't."

"Let's not scare her," said Gideon, looking nervously in Ginny's direction.

Fabian shook his head. "She ought to know what she's signing up for," he said. "And Moody will tell her, if we don't. He's always going on about the fucking death rate, on this. Ceridwen last week, Benji in November, and there were a couple of close shaves last week, too. Sirius was badly injured, wasn't he?"

"I can deal with it," said Ginny, firmly. She knew almost as much as these men did, about fighting a war, and she would have bet her broomstick none of them had ever been quite as close to Voldemort as she had.

"We'll see, soon enough," said Fabian, earning himself a warning look from his brother.

Ginny and Remus took their leave not long afterwards, leaving Gideon and Fabian to what was clearly a recurring argument about their food shopping habits. Or lack of habits, perhaps. They left with the promise of a visit to Molly's house soon, which Ginny wasn't sure about, and the promise of a visit to Alastor Moody and Dorcas Meadowes, which she was hoping would be sooner rather than later. With things having altered out of their control already, they were about to run out of useful information if Luna was correct in her reckoning. And Luna had a nasty habit of being right.

"I hope they weren't too much," said Remus, back on the streets of Godric's Hollow.

"Nah," said Ginny, "I've known worse."

"Oh yeah?"

"My brothers."

"Well, if you can handle those two, and your brothers, you might even be able to manage my friends," said Remus, smiling. "They're a bit of a handful. Sirius, especially. James has calmed down, since he got engaged, and Peter's never been quite as bad as those two. But when everyone's together, well, most people find us a bit much."

"I'd like to meet them," said Ginny. She would. She wanted to see really how much Harry was like James, and she wanted to come up with some pretext to lock Peter Pettigrew in an unopenable box for, oh, two or three years? Sirius would have killed him. Ginny thought that too quick.

"Well, if you're going to join the Order, we're all involved. Do you… are you still interested? Even after hearing all that about the people that got killed, or hurt?"

"Yes," said Ginny. It still rankled that she had never been allowed to join, until afterwards, despite everything that she had done. "It might seem strange, but I can't imagine doing anything else. I don't want You-Know-Who to win."

They had arrived back outside the bakery where they had met that morning, and Remus stopped, shuffling his feet slightly.

"Here we are," he said, looking at the pavement. "Look, I'll understand if not, I really will, we don't really know each other, do we, and I don't know if this is even a good idea to ask, but, well, in a completely no-pressure way, would you like to go for a drink with me sometime? And not talk about the Order? We can talk about that if you want to, but I mean, not in a work related capacity? Sorry, I'm talking too much," he finished, rather lamely, and put both of his hands to his neck.

Ginny blinked several times, rapidly. Her right hand went to rest on her left, twiddling with the engagement ring Harry had given her. She didn't know if she'd get back to him. She didn't know what this was about. She'd never thought about Remus, like that.

"Oh shit," said Remus, whose eyes had followed the movement of Ginny's hands. "Oh Merlin. I shouldn't have asked, I should have noticed that, I never, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," said Ginny. "It's sort of complicated, anyway. I don't even know if I ought to be wearing this, any more."

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Remus. "In a completely non-date, as friends only, sort of scenario? I may be shit when it comes to asking a girl out on a date, but everyone says I'm good at advice. I did have a rather large hand in getting James and Lily together, after all. You wouldn't know why that's significant, but trust me, that's a big deal."

"Okay," said Ginny, who was desperate to hear that story, "here's what we'll do. You can take me out for a drink, and tell me that story, and I'll tell you mine." Well, she would tell Remus a version of her story, anyway. Luna would help her work out what.

"It's a deal," said Remus, with a smile. "I'll owl you, shall I?"

And he did, two days later. Ginny smiled a little when she got it, which prompted Luna to ask who it was from.

"Remus," she said. "Who else do we get correspondence from?"

The answer was nobody. The only owl that ever flew to their address was Remus' tawny. Ginny was slowly becoming friends with the rather stand-offish bird, bonding mainly over a shared love of eating fish.

She'd thought long and hard about what to do about Harry, and Remus, and the whole situation as it was being presented to her. On one hand, she was engaged to be married, and in the months she had been here, she had always held in the back of her mind that she would get back to him, some day. She was doing this because she loved him, after all.

On the other hand, it had been almost nine months they had been in the past, with little knowledge of if they could get back at all or what they would find there when they did. If it were possible, going back would be a gamble. One she had always thought she was willing to take, for Harry, but a gamble nonetheless.

"Do you think," she asked Hermione, when the two of them were in the garden, "that we'll make it back to 2002?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I haven't had time to be working on the device, the Time Turner, whatever it is. It isn't technically a Time Turner, because it's different, but it does much the same. I think it's fixable, but I only know half of how, still. Do you want to go back?"

"I miss Harry," said Ginny. "And I miss my family. But what if we get back and Harry is married to somebody else? Or dead in a freak accident, because we saved somebody's life who takes him on a broomstick and it crashes? Or alive, but madly in love with Draco Malfoy because they didn't grow up enemies?"

Hermione laughed. "None of those things would ever happen," she said, through the laughter. "Harry and Draco, really? Those two would always find something to hate about the other. And Harry's almost as good at flying as you are. And you know he loves you."

"But what if he's different?" Ginny continued. "What if I'm different?"

"There's no way of knowing," said Luna, who Ginny had not noticed appear behind them. "Everything is shifting, like a whirlpool in the deep, and nobody quite knows where they will come out."

"Not helpful," muttered Ginny. Because it wasn't. It really, really fucking wasn't.

"When we're done, we can try to fix the Time Turner," said Hermione. "It's got to be possible. And we'll have a better idea of what we might be going back to, then."

"Personalities can be shaped by events," said Luna, "and the personalities are more than the person."

That was what Ginny had been trying to say, really, about Harry, and about her, and about what a different 2002 might look like for Ginny Weasley and whatever sort of Harry Potter there was.

"What do we do if we can't?" asked Ginny. "If we stay? Do we try to become normal witches in the 1980s? Do I remain Philomena Prewett forever?" Thinking about this was beginning to give her a headache. Not thinking about it did too.

Hermione looked as though she felt the same. "I suppose if the original one never engaged with the wizarding world the first time around, there's no reason to expect that she would this time," she said, eventually. "So you probably could, but whether it's advisable, I don't know."

"I feel like all of us, Sirius included, have made a lifetime's habit of doing things that aren't advisable," said Ginny. "So I don't think that's a barrier. But I don't think I want to be Philomena forever, anyway." She knew that then, when she hadn't before. "For one thing, it's a crap name. And I like being Ginny. But I want a life, a normal life, somehow, whether that's here or in the future. And being Philomena would be a lie, and I don't want to lie to people forever."

"We all do," said Hermione. "We all want normal."

"I thought this was about Remus," said Luna, happily.

"Remus? None of this is about Remus," said Ginny, but her heart beat slightly faster at the mention of his name.

"Of course it is," replied Luna. "You smile every time you get an owl from him, and for two people who are just conversing about business you get an awful lot of owls from him, do you not? And you smile while you write back, and you always do it very soon after the owl has come. The owl stays for the answer, so she knows, too. And you bring up your working with the Order frequently, so you can talk about him. You do not love him, but you certainly would like to have sex with him."

"Luna!" That was both Ginny and Hermione.

"She doesn't, do you, Ginny?"

She did. Sort of. Maybe she didn't actually want to, yet, but she couldn't rule out wanting to at some point in the future.

Bollocks.

"I am often right," said Luna, peacefully sat on the grass making a daisy chain.

"Not that it's a problem, if you do," said Hermione. "I mean, we have no way of knowing if we can get back to Harry and Ron. It's not cheating, is it? At least not if you just kiss them."

"I don't think so," said Ginny. "Not that I have. I don't even know if I want to, you know? He's nice, but he's also Professor Lupin, and it's weird."

It was. And that was entirely separate from the Harry problem.

"And what about you and Sirius?" asked Luna, to Hermione.

"What about that? Sirius has been ignoring me," said Hermione, flatly. "So I'm going to ignore him."

"Childish," said Ginny. "But possibly fair."

"Why exactly would he be ignoring you?" asked Luna. In retrospect, that was possibly what Ginny should have asked. It seemed like the important question. Or it did once Luna had asked it.

"We did something he has later regretted," she replied.

"Like what?" asked Ginny, although the context of the conversation was beginning to make a few things clear.

Number one of those things was that Hermione almost certainly had feelings for Sirius.

Well now. This was getting interesting.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"No, I suppose you don't," said Luna, three daisy chains now draped around her neck and her fingers nimbly working on a fourth. "Nobody really wants to talk about it when they feel as though they are unworthy of somebody's love."

"I am not in love with Sirius!"

"Funny," said Luna. "I was talking about Sirius feeling unworthy of you. But it is interesting how you reacted like that."

Hermione stood up and stalked inside the house, slamming the back door behind her.

"That door is going to fall off, one of these days," said Luna. "Her and Sirius do treat it rather badly, don't you think?"

"How do you know all of this?" asked Ginny. She never doubted that what Luna said had truth to it, even if it wasn't the full truth.

"I listen," said Luna. "I watch. I base my thoughts on how people interact in subtle ways. Anyone can do it if they try, but most do not try."

"Right," said Ginny. She'd always assumed it was a touch of the Second Sight. She'd never taken Divination, Ron had warned her off it, but the signs were there.

"I suppose you're going to ask next what you should do about Remus asking you on a date?"

"Er," said Ginny. That Sight thing, again.

"For what it is worth, go. Harry is not born, at this moment. You are not being disloyal. Or not in my understanding, anyway, although it is true that etiquette guides do not cover this kind of scenario, do they?"

"I dunno," said Ginny. "Never looked. Aunt Muriel used to try to make me read them, but I mostly put a Quidditch magazine inside. If any do, she'd have it. She had an etiquette guide for everything."

It wasn't, Ginny thought, the best idea to break into Aunt Muriel's house just to go through her book collection, though. They weren't supposed to be attracting unnecessary attention, after all, and Muriel would call the Aurors out for the merest sniff of a crime.

"I hate everything," said Ginny, without much reason.

"Oh, we all do, from time to time," said Luna. "But after all, we can only work with what we have, and embrace that which is given to us. Hermione and Sirius would both do good to learn that." She stood, dropped the fourth daisy chain around Ginny's neck, and wandered off down to the end of the garden.

Well, that helped about as much as anything did.

She, Ginny Weasley, was officially a disaster.

 _Harry_

 _June 2002, London_

Harry tramped his familiar route through the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, up the left side as you went in, avoiding the drinks stand, the sandwich booth, and the other places that people tended to congregate. Even four years later, people still stared at the man who had killed Voldemort. There was often someone trying to shake his hand. It was why he liked to get here early.

Ron was not such an early bird. He trailed Harry by a few metres, yawning and carrying his work robes under his arm. It was still a far sight better than Ron usually looked before eight o'clock in the morning, and Harry took his appearance as a sign of the seriousness of the situation.

They took the lift to Level One. Harry had considered going to their boss in the Auror Department, but Robards was a stickler for the rules. Kingsley would either see this for what Harry thought it was, the mysterious disappearance of three high-profile war heroes, or he would kindly tell Harry to stop panicking. And Kingsley's instincts were the best Harry knew of. The Minister had joined the Aurors on several trips to weed out Death Eaters after the end of the war, even though all official protocols had suggested he shouldn't, and they had needed him every time.

The fact of the matter was that Kingsley was brilliant, and the Auror Department severely understaffed and with a far too high proportion of new recruits.

He knocked on the door of the Minister for Magic. Usually, Kingsley's secretary Handa would be there in a flash, demanding to know if you had an appointment and why exactly you thought you could just waltz up here, and all her other usual questions. But Handa frequently stayed late, and never arrived before eight. So instead, it was Kingsley who opened the office door.

"Harry!" he said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. "Ron! Please come in."

The office was plain, mainly taken up with a large black desk in the centre and a seating area to the right of the door with red armchairs. Harry had been in it many times before. He chose the chair nearest to the fire, with Ron next to him. Kingsley sat across from him.

"What brings you here so early?"

"Minister…"

"Call me Kingsley, I keep telling you."

"Kingsley, Hermione and Ginny are missing. We think our friend Luna Lovegood, too. Do you remember her? She was part of the Hogwarts resistance, and kidnapped by Death Eaters and kept inside Malfoy Manor for several months."

"I remember Luna, yes. Xeno Lovegood's daughter. She's often in here, reporting for The Quibbler."

"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about that." Harry looked over at Ron, who looked faintly green and was remaining silent. He had spent all morning alternating between silence and wailing.

"So, missing. For how long?"

"Since last night. But we've done all the basic whereabouts and welfare checks you'd expect as a first point of call, Minister, er, Kingsley, and they're not any of the places we would expect. I've done them last night, and we did a second set this morning."

"And we is you and Ron?"

"And Molly, she noticed Ginny was missing first. Arthur and Charlie Weasley are also aware that they are missing, but we've kept it quite quiet. We checked the Lovegood place, but Mr Lovegood didn't look as though he had much grasp on reality."

"No, unfortunately I do not think he is aware of much, these days. I did an interview with him last week, and he wasn't right. I don't think he's been right since Luna was taken off the Hogwarts Express." Kingsley's voice was his usual deep; slow, and calming. His eyebrows were knitted together, though, and he twirled the quill he was holding in his hand while he spoke.

"I'm pleased that you have kept it a secret," Kingsley continued. "I think, as I'm sure you did, that the Prophet would report this as a threat to our security if three well-known members and associates of the Order of the Phoenix were to have disappeared. Now, Auror Robards says that there have been no known sightings of the remaining few Death Eaters in the last couple of months. Is that correct to your knowledge, too?"

Harry knew that Kingsley was likely to have far more up-to-date information than he was, but he answered the Minister's question anyway.

"That's correct."

"So I, as I'm sure you do, think it is unlikely that they have been captured by a rogue Death Eater. We cannot rule it out, but it is unlikely.

"Yes."

"What do you think happened, then?"

"Our only obvious lead, that we haven't been able to trace yet, is that Hermione was due to go down to the Department of Mysteries yesterday afternoon. That's where the secretary outside her office said she was, when Ron called there yesterday afternoon."

"Was that before or after you noticed she was missing?" asked Kingsley, still fiddling with the quill. "You said she had been missing since last night, not yesterday afternoon?"

"Yes. Ron…" Harry looked at Ron, as if to confirm whether it was okay to say this. Ron was staring at his shoes, and so Harry decided it was best to go ahead. He wasn't even convinced Ron was listening. "Ron and Hermione had a falling out. Ron tried to deliver…" he looked at Ron again "er, something, to her office yesterday afternoon."

"Ah," said Kingsley. He was hiding his smile well, ever a professional. "Which explains it."

"Yes, but I don't think the disappearance is anything to do with that," said Harry. He wanted to make this clear. "Hermione doesn't run off when she falls out with Ron. She confronts him, and then she comes and complains to me, and then she gets on with her life."

"I see."

"Please stop," said Ron. "I don't want to talk about this. Not here." He hadn't seemed to notice, but Ron had drawn a small, square box from the pocket of his robes and was holding it quite firmly in his left hand. Harry had only seen a similar box once before, and he knew where that had lead.

"And there's no other reason any of them would have had to leave here?" asked Kingsley.

"None," said Harry. "Ginny… well, unless she was skipping out of the wedding."

"She would not do that, I'm sure of it," said Kingsley, kindly.

"No," said Ron hoarsely. "She loves you, mate."

"In which case," said Kingsley. "I'll authorise you to open a formal case, and to keep it quiet. You'll report to me, not to Robards, although he will be informed of your work. With the exception of those already told, who I think encompass the next-of-kin of at least two of our missing persons, it will remain entirely confidential to those in this room and to Robards. Am I correct that you are Miss Granger's next of kin, Harry?"

"Yes," said Harry. They'd nominated each other as their next-of-kin at the Ministry shortly after the war, with neither of them having any remaining blood relatives in the country. Molly Weasley had offered, of course, but they had felt the bond was important. They had stuck together through every part of the war, and it felt right.

"So everyone is informed," said Kingsley. "If you need any secretarial assistance, please do let me know. I'd like daily updates, I'll ask Handa to place you on my schedule for this evening. Unfortunately, this is all the time I can offer you right now, as I've got a call scheduled with the President of MACUSA in two minutes. Sorry, boys. Good luck."

Kingsley shook hands with both of them, Ron slipping his little box back into his pocket, and showed them out the door.

As the door closed behind them, Harry could have sworn he heard Kingsley shout 'fuck!'. That would be unusual. Kingsley did not generally swear.


	31. Chapter 31: Faking A Family

**Chapter Thirty One: Faking A Family**

 _Hermione_

 _February 1979, Ministry of Magic, London_

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

They stood in Luna's tiny, shared office in the Ministry of Magic, just a few steps down the corridor from the Minister's Office. Piles of parchment lined the office, and tottering piles of record books spilled from the overstuffed shelves. Luna's desk was neat, her colleague's, less so. Cabinets sat against the back wall, the record of every law passed, every magical crime committed, and every birth and death of a witch or a wizard.

"It is sensible, in my opinion," Luna replied, talking into the pile of documents she was sifting through. "If not strictly speaking legal. Where do you stand on illegal activity?"

Hermione blinked. "I'm not talking about my stance on illegal activity in the Ministry, Luna!"

"Statistically speaking," she replied, "you are better off committing a crime as close as possible to the seat of power or to law enforcement. People assume you would not be so stupid as to do that, on the whole." She threw open a second drawer in the cabinet she'd been working from. "Besides, I know the answer, don't I? You broke into Gringotts, and trapped Rita Skeeter in a jar, and…"

"Luna! They could be back soon!"

"I told you, Harriet never comes back from lunch before two in the afternoon. It's honestly a wonder she gets anything done. Ah, here we are. Now we just need to do this, and then this, and…"

"Luna! Is that what we agreed?"

"Mostly," she said, as she slid the parchment back into its place in the sheaf and closed the cabinet door. "A Lyra Black exists where she did not before, that is the important thing. She is an empty shell, for you to step into, as much as she is anything else."

"So that's it?" asked Hermione, swallowing her reservations. Luna had been working here for months, and she hadn't been fired yet. She'd know some things about the records, at least.

"No, not exactly," said Luna, doing that disconcerting thing where she stared into the middle distance. "There's the last bit."

"Which is?"

"Not able to be done here."

"But what is it?"

"Luckily," said Luna, causing Hermione to wonder if she had missed something, "I have taken the afternoon off work, so we will be able to complete it this afternoon."

"Complete what?"

"You'll see."

Oh Christ. Luna's plans, the ones she would not let on until they actually happened, varied from being bizarre but harmless, like the trip to the Isle of Skye for Ginny's birthday, to downright dangerous, like experimental charms on the gnomes in the back garden of The Burrow. Hermione had never once trusted one, and had mostly been proved right not to.

"Please, Luna." She didn't have the patience for this. Not after their failure to save Ceridwen Dearborn, a few weeks ago, and their utter inability to do anything useful since.

At home, Hermione went to the plans, and she went through them again. They took up three walls of the living room, now, the flipchart paper on the walls surrounded by smaller pieces of brightly-coloured card, all covered in her own neat handwriting or Luna's spirally sprawl. Ginny's rounded letters occasionally filled in a gap or a detail, or posed a question. Aside from the earliest sheets, Sirius had contributed little.

"No fucking point," he'd said, at their last planning session. "I know nothing of use."

She'd ignored that. If he didn't want to engage, when this had been his idea in the first place, there was little she could do about that.

It was more complicated than it had been, back at the start, when they knew what had happened before and how they could counter it. With every action, they influenced what was to come, and they now sat on a knife-edge. They had influenced enough, like with Helena Bridlington, that some things had changed. But there was still little enough of their impact on the course of events. Not everything was better. Danger still loomed, there in the edges of her mind. They almost certainly hadn't done enough to stop the worst of it, but it was no longer clear what would happen next.

She pulled down one of the sheets, and ran through it again.

February had been a calm month, for some reason. There had been large scale attacks in March, some of the biggest the Death Eaters had ever attempted. They'd tracked through the actions of Helena, in all of that, and of the other recruit Sirius had thought had joined the Order in this time period. They needed to watch for him, as they should have done Helena.

And, desperately, they needed to make progress on the bigger problem.

Their notes on that were much sparser. They'd discussed Regulus, which was next to useless with Sirius providing nothing but grunts and muttering. It was obvious to Hermione that they ought to leave him alone, because he had already done what they needed him to.

"But that assumes," Ginny had said, "that nothing we do drives him further into the arms of Voldemort. Scaly, nasty arms that they are."

"History shows that Voldemort was actually somewhat conventionally attractive in this time period," Luna had said.

"Not the point. And how do we make sure he doesn't die? That's important, isn't it, Sirius?"

Sirius had been silent, so Hermione had answered instead. "I think so. Maybe we just watch Regulus, then?" She had looked at Sirius as she said it, but he'd still said and done nothing.

There were further questions also; those of Horcruxes, other than the locket, of Peter Pettigrew, of dealing with Voldemort after the Horcruxes were gone. Of those, they had attempted discussing only Peter. Sirius had raised the television remote as a pretend wand and muttered _Avada Kedavra_ , repeatedly, and in a rare loss of self-control Hermione had shouted at him for being childish, and he'd shouted back and walked out. She thought maybe she should have apologised, afterwards, given what Peter had done and which of them it had affected most. But he hadn't, or even acknowledged it, so neither had she.

Ginny had called both of them ridiculous, and Luna had sighed.

So there they were, stuck with nobody really talking about the important things. Ginny and Luna had banded together, discussing Ginny's love life and cooking. Sirius was upstairs in his loft, doing God knows what. And she was here with the plans, useless plans, in the main, because so far they didn't address almost half of the important stuff. Because of Sirius, in the main, because of how he'd been acting since the night they had kissed.

She had thought carefully about all of this, and the conclusion she'd come to was really the only answer. Sirius had been drinking that night, he'd been upset, they both had been. He'd not even been the one to kiss her. They didn't fit together. She'd taken advantage of him wanting to cheer her up.

And, besides, she couldn't prevent Ron from niggling away in the back of her mind.

Yes, she'd acted in a way that could be construed as a break-up, and it hadn't been out of the realms of possibility she had meant it that way. She'd meant it that way before, definitely. And then she'd disappeared, and there was no telling if she would be going back to that time at all, let alone to a time that she would recognise as her own.

And whatever Luna said, she was not in love with Sirius, and nor did she feel unworthy of his love.

She had enjoyed kissing him, it was as simple as that. And she had been drinking, and emotional, and it was considered perfectly acceptable for witches, and for Muggle women, to kiss a man and for it to mean nothing. To either of them. Sirius was hardly a man who wanted a long-term attachment. She knew what he'd been like at Hogwarts, he'd told her and Harry, and Ron, and Tonks and everyone else at Grimmauld Place the stories, and Remus had confirmed them.

He had been drunk, too, and emotional, and men were also allowed to kiss people and have it mean nothing. Sirius was within his rights.

So it was all a moot point.

If she hadn't said what she had that morning, he'd have said it.

He was just acting as though he wouldn't have, so as to seem like the wounded party. The fact that he was ignoring her, since, confirmed that.

She wanted to talk to Jo, really. She would have given good advice.

She pulled out a sheet of paper, pale blue, and a fountain pen. They'd been shopping almost exclusively in Muggle shops, these days, and Hermione missed quills. Fountain pens had a similar ink flow, at least. A biro hurt her hand these days, and a pencil didn't seem permanent enough. This was important, after all.

 _Horcruxes_ , she wrote along the top, and then she underlined it as neatly as she could without a ruler.

She didn't need anybody else to help her with these plans, not if they were all going to be idiots about it. She'd get things straight, by herself, and then they could discuss it in an orderly fashion later.

 _Locket_ , she wrote, _Regulus Black finds, September 1979. Inside 12 Grimmauld Place until approx 1996 or 1997._

Her fountain pen paused, dropping ink gently onto the paper.

 _Try to save Regulus_ , she added. That much they ought to try. She was going to say for Sirius' sake, but it wasn't. It was for the man, not much more than a boy at Hogwarts, that Regulus was.

 _Need an in,_ she wrote next, _with Black family in order to gain locket after Regulus has collected it and to save Regulus. Cannot intercept before he gets to it - we do not know location of cave._

That about covered it, because she didn't have a clue where it was, which was frustrating. Harry had been Apparated there by Dumbledore, and he didn't know, and he'd been working with the Order still when they had left the future to find the location of the cave so they could go in and clean it up. Dumbledore, it turned out, hadn't left much in the way of paper notes, and had held most of the information in his own head. Good for security, she thought, as she looked up at all of their completely insecure written plans, but terrible for continuity planning. She supposed it made sense, though, knowing what she'd known of the old wizard.

Leaving her pen and paper for a moment, she picked up her wand, and began to complex process of enchanting the papers so only the four of them could read them. An easy way to mitigate some of that risk, at least, and they did need to reduce risk wherever they could. They'd almost lost Sirius, once, and it had only been luck that Ginny and Luna had been in the right place at the right time to get him back.

She went back to her paper. That was the locket about it was why she was in the business of infiltrating the Black family, too.

 _Diary_ , she wrote, _confirmed created in this time period._ Harry had said, because Dumbledore had said, that it was likely made while Voldemort, Riddle, was at school. She supposed that was a problem; they didn't know the exact creation dates of others.

 _Lucius Malfoy given diary for safekeeping until 1992. Presumed location in Malfoy Manor._

Then, _Cup. Unconfirmed creation date, but prior to Halloween 1981. Inside Lestrange Vault until 1998._

 _Diadem. Most likely created some years ago. Inside Hogwarts Room of Requirement until 1998. Need access to 'room of hidden things'._

 _Ring. Created while Voldemort at school. Inside Gaunt shack, Little Hangleton. Easiest to get to, heavily cursed._ She remembered Dumbledore's hand, and Snape's memories. They couldn't chance that. On a separate sheet, she noted down the need to have more knowledge about dark magic and the identification of curses used on objects. She knew a bit, of course, but Sirius was their expert, and he was being an arse.

 _Snake. Not created until 1994, irrelevant._

 _Harry. Not created until 1981. And never will be._

There. She felt better for adding those last two, for completeness.

Maybe she should apologise to Sirius.

Not for what she'd said, she stood by that, but she hadn't been very nice about the way she had delivered it, perhaps. It wasn't quite as bad as the time she had dumped Ron by Howler, early in their relationship, or when she'd just completely ignored Cormac McLaggen until he got the message, but she was older now, and she should know the way to let people down gently.

"Nice work," said Luna, entering the living room. "That looks worthwhile. Are you ready to do the next part?"

"You still haven't explained what that is," said Hermione, pinning the sheet on Horcruxes back up alongside the other pieces of paper and enchanting it the same. She'd need to talk it through with the others, but it made her feel as though something had been done just for it to be up there. "And I'm going to talk to Sirius first."

"It seems like you already know," said Luna. "We will need Sirius, of course."

Hermione sighed. She would not have picked these three, for a mission like this. Well, okay, maybe Ginny, she thought as she went up the stairs. Ginny was good in a crisis, knew her Healing spells, and not irritating to spend long amounts of time with. Her, Ginny, Ron and Harry would not have had all these problems.

Well, her and Ron had been fighting a lot, hadn't they, and she might have dumped him. It had been very close to what she'd said in that Howler, that night that they'd argued the last time.

"Sirius?" she called, at the loft hatch. "Sirius?"

"Hermione?" came back his reply. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Luna says she needs us both," Hermione began. But that wasn't really the point, was it? "And, look, I wanted to say sorry. I don't think we should repeat that experience, we were drunk and emotional and I'm sure you don't want to do it again anyway. But I shouldn't have been so rude about how I said it. You should have had a chance to talk."

Sirius made a snorting noise, but the loft hatch opened and he descended down a conjured golden ladder to the landing.

"Yes," he said. "Maybe next time, let me say something for myself rather than assuming, yeah?"

And he stalked off downstairs.

He looked dreadful, his hair slightly matted at the back, his eyes surrounded by dark circles, his wrists almost as thin and bony as they had been after Azkaban. He walked with a slight stoop, his dark eyes almost always focused on the ground.

"Sirius," she said, following on. "Are you alright?"

He ignored her. Part of her concern for him evaporated. Once again he was being an arse. Why, exactly, she had kidded herself into thinking she felt something for him, she didn't know.

"Oh, hello, Sirius," said Luna, as the pair of them entered the living room again. "You're going to need lunch. Here, take it." She passed him a bowl of pasta. "I ought to warn you that it was cooked by Ginny, but she is improving rather a lot."

"Thanks," said Sirius, digging in with a fork.

"So what is this all about?" Hermione asked, taking a seat on the armchair as Luna and Sirius continued to stand in the centre of the room.

"Well," said Luna, finding a seat of her own. "We have established your legal presence as Lyra Black, illegitimate daughter of Alphard Black, but that will not be enough to satisfy Sirius' relatives, of course. Certain families do not rely on the Ministry to ascertain their own, and we will of course need to account for why you do not exist to their knowledge at the moment. So we need to make you a pureblood Black, to all intents and purposes."

"I've told you," said Hermione. "There's no test for blood purity, the whole thing is a construction of the elite."

"No," said Luna, "there is not. And I do suspect you are right about the fact that it is somewhat of a nebulous construct. But, and Sirius will tell me if I am wrong, of course, that the old families do have a way of ascertaining who belongs in their family line, is that not right?"

"She's right," said Sirius, whose pasta bowl was nearly completely empty.

"Otherwise," Luna continued, "how would they know the parentage of an illegitimate child, or one who was suspected to be a result of an affair?"

"And the Noble and Most Ancient Fucking House of Black cares about those things," said Sirius, putting the empty pasta bowl onto the coffee table and going to look out the window. "Blood matters to them like you've never seen it before. They make the Malfoys look tame."

"So, we need to make you appear as though you bear the markers of the Black family in your blood and in your magic," said Luna. "The best way to describe it to you may be a magical adoption. It isn't, it is more a simulation of one, but were we to complete the full rite it would be. Don't worry," she said, catching Hermione's look, "it is, of course, reversible."

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Otherwise they wouldn't be able to disown people."

"What exactly does it do?" asked Hermione. She had made it a life's principle never to allow someone to perform magic on her that she did not completely understand.

Sirius sat down. "You have magic," he said. "I have magic, and so does Luna. To most people's eyes, we all have the same magic. A few dickheads think mine and Luna's is better than yours because we have a family history of it, but that's bullshit, and we all know that. But there are differences. The same way almost everyone born into the Black family has dark hair, we also carry some markers like that in our magic. A signature, I suppose, it's tricky to describe. And that's part of what leads some people to believe our magic is better. But it's still bullshit, because when you have children you'll begin to pass your magical markers down, and that's just the same."

"Genes," said Hermione, beginning to understand. "The Muggle term is genes."

"Right," said Sirius. "That's what Remus said, too. It is and it isn't, again. So some of it is as simple as that, yes, like how witches from certain families tend towards being Seers, or how some families are all good at potions. Parselmouths. This is more, I don't know how to describe it, there's a part of us that is intrinsically our family heritage. You can't renounce it, someone with the right has to take it from you. I have it, as much as I don't want it, and someone who knows what they're doing can look for it."

Hermione blinked at him. She had long ago given up on the idea of knowing everything there was to know about magic. That desire she'd had when she was eleven was childish, and didn't take into account the true scope of magic. There were things Dumbledore didn't know of, after all, and Voldemort. Things that were being discovered. But she'd read, and asked questions, and she'd naively assumed that she knew enough to live out the rest of her life without being startled by some arcane piece of knowledge she'd need to know in order to survive. She'd even learnt about wizarding marriage rites!

But that had not accounted for a trip into the past, and attempts to create members of a distinguished pureblood family where they did not exist.

"What is it called?" she asked.

"Genus Cognatio," said Luna. "It is believed to have originated from the Latin for family, for consanguinity, and yes, where the word of genes came from."

"And this helps us how?"

"My family will check if you're a Black," said Sirius. "They're like that."

"And I will be?"

"As much as they can tell, yes. We're adding a fake genus cognatio, but a good fake. It's been used to adopt people into a family, but not for years. Pollux, my grandfather, he reckoned it hadn't been used in his lifetime. The families who were inclined to care about this sort of thing were getting heavily into blood purity, so they stopped, and the rest of them never really bothered."

"It is somewhat of an anachronism," said Luna. "If a useful one."

"Fine," she said. "What do I need to do?" She had her misgivings, but if it was reversible, she'd just get rid of it when she didn't need to infiltrate any more.

"Sirius, first," said Luna. He held out his arm, grudgingly, as if the last thing in the world he wanted to do was give his family gene to Hermione. Luna leant forwards, and with a nick of a silver dagger, took blood from his arm.

"Blood magic?" Hermione asked. "But that's Dark magic."

"Wherever did you hear that?" asked Luna. "Harry's mum used blood magic, in a way, did she not? So did Harry, when he sacrificed himself to provide protection for us all that night we fought Voldemort at Hogwarts. Both of them used it to protect, and magic is all about intention."

"But," Hermione interceded, feeling that Luna hadn't grasped the point, "if magic was about intent then I could cast a _Reducto_ on that chair over there but intend to turn it blue, and it would break anyway."

"Would it?" asked Luna. "And if you did it a thousand times, would the results always be the same? Would it be random? Would your intent eventually win out over your spell, and you'd have it blue a hundred times in the last hundred?"

Sirius had relaxed, reclining on the floor with his back to the wall, legs stretched out in front of them. His socks had broomsticks on them, and one had a hole at the heel. He was finding this whole exchange amusing.

Hermione was finding she had no answers for Luna. She didn't have the time to try and reduce the same chair to rubble a thousand times while willing herself to make it blue! She had things to be doing, an evil mastermind to stop, and a time turner to fix if she ever wanted to escape all of this.

"Magic is more than just spells, Hermione," Luna said, watching Hermione's face with interest.

"Yeah," said Sirius, in his usual bloody irritating unhelpful way, "there's potions and tea-leaves, too. Though tea-leaves usually get interpreted in a way that makes witches fucking terrified of me as an Animagus, and you were taught potions by Snape, so Merlin knows what he taught you."

"Sirius," she said, half in warning, and half just plain irritated with him. "Luna," she continued, "I can't see how this isn't a bad thing."

"Please," said Luna. "Can you trust me on this? I do not often ask people to do things for me, after all, and I do feel that on this one I am right."

Trust me, that was what Sirius had said to her. She had, and this was how it had ended up.

But when it came down to it, Luna didn't really ask for much. Certainly not many important things. And she knew about these sorts of magic, in a way that Hermione didn't. Hermione was never sure she believed in some of these things that Luna took for true, and then things happened like prophecies actually being real and it turned out that Luna had been right all along.

And there was some truth to the intent thing, she supposed. Harry had used blood magic, if what Luna was saying was right, and he was the last wizard who would ever do a thing like that.

"Okay," she said, holding out her arm to the little blonde witch. "I'll do it."

"Thank you," said Luna, raising the dagger.

"Yay," said Sirius, with a dose of sarcasm that she did not need, right now.

"I'll remind you, this was your idea," said Hermione. "To make me into your Uncle Alphard's daughter, and trust to his history of ill-advised liaisons to make my story plausible."

"Only because you wouldn't let me do it," said Sirius, hotly. "I would have been fine, thank you very much, and we wouldn't have needed this rigmarole."

"You," she said, "would have screwed it up, because your grasp of Occlumency is shit, and besides Regulus has seen and recognised you twice now. Your cover would be blown the instant he walks in, and he's never met me, and I can Occlude."

"We could have used polyjuice."

"Who's hair, Sirius? What if we lost the person? Or were you going to disguise yourself as me?"

"I don't know, some Muggle?"

"Children!" said Luna, her voice somewhere between her usual, ethereal tone and that of Molly Weasley on a bad day. "I would please ask you to have this argument more quietly, else you will disturb my work. I would use Ginny's Silencing trick on you both, if needs must."

Both of them sat quietly, after that, as Luna sat cross legged on the floor over the tiny, teal glass bowl containing their blood and the other ingredients, stirring and muttering. Hermione used the time to come up with more things she wished she had said to Sirius, about exactly why she didn't trust his judgement any more and how she had regretted not kissing him sooner, because then they could have done this stage by now of the post-kiss awkwardness. Or she would have known not to work with him earlier. Or she should have let him be the one to say he didn't want to do it again, not her, because then she could have cried and pretended to be upset, which was better than him doing this.

It wasn't a very constructive use of her time, so she read the book that Luna was working from, and that backed up everything that Luna had said. And it was a very reputable book, too. She'd seen it referenced multiple times as being one of the best and most thorough sources on ritual magic, so she trusted it, in as much as one should ever trust an individual source.

And Sirius trusted this, and despite whatever else she thought about Sirius, he did know about this sort of thing. He'd proved that before, and she had used the things he'd taught her about pureblood customs and old magical powers at work.

"It is ready," Luna said, at last. "Are you ready, Hermione?"

"It's reversible," said Sirius, kindly. That made a change to the way he'd been for the rest if this. "You're not going to be stuck with my horrific excuse for a family forever."

"Yes," she said. She sat how Luna instructed her, and waited.

"You will need to do the next part, as you will know," said Luna, and Sirius moved forwards. He raised his wand, and one eyebrow, at the bowl, and looked at Hermione as if appraising her. She ignored him. Whatever decision he'd been making was clearly made, as he looked away and muttered something incomprehensible at the bowl. Nothing happened for several seconds, while all three of them stared at the mixture, then the spell seemed to do something at last, rising up out of the bowl in a silver mist and swirling its way towards her.

"Don't worry," said Luna. 'It's harmless. Relax. Let it."

Hermione tried, even though she didn't much trust spells she didn't know. But she trusted Luna, and Sirius, and besides, over the years she'd learnt that sometimes you did need to take a risk for the good of everyone. They'd got into some of their worst messes when she'd tried to stick exactly to what she knew, hadn't they?

Of course, there was the possibility that she was lulling herself into a false sense of security, that this was completely different to what Harry and Lily had done, and that the whole thing was a disaster waiting to completely unfold. The silver mist off the bowl was floating around her, and she felt something warm, a tingling, and then it disappeared. For blood magic, it was underwhelming. She'd imagined darkness, a feeling of foreboding, something… more. Maybe some cackling or a song from the evildoer behind the spell, but that was the films she'd liked to watch as a child.

"See?" said Sirius. "Nothing to it. Except for the fact you're now, by blood, a member of one of the worst families in wizarding Britain, but that can happen to any of us." He was being flippant again.

"If it's reversible," she said, "why didn't you do it to yourself?"

Luna was floating around clearing her things away, and Sirius took his time to answer.

"Well, because you can't do it to yourself," he said, in the end. "And I assumed my dear mother or father had. I'd forgotten it was Grandfather Pollux that taught me about all of this, and it seems my mother and father either didn't care enough to properly disown me, or, more likely, had forgotten how. Mother just raised her wand to the tapestry and blasted," he demonstrated, jabbing his wand at the wall, "and neither of them cared enough about their eldest son to do me a favour and actually throw me out of the family. And Arcturus and most of the others assumed they had, so they didn't, Regulus, well, he was a kid, and Pollux thought I'd come back, eventually."

Hermione stayed quiet, as he returned his wand to his pocket.

"It's why I could inherit Grimmauld Place. Father never technically owned the place, it belonged to his father, which was Arcturus. There was still another male Black alive when he died, and he never had a will, so he likely assumed it would pass to them. Cygnus. But instead, it passed to the next male Black in the direct line, which sadly for everyone was me. Because everyone had collectively failed to actually disown me." He sighed. "They disowned Andromeda properly, though, so somebody did clearly remember how."

"Why her, and not you?"

"She married a Muggleborn and had his child. You can't come back from that, by their creed. But loads of pureblood heirs have a little dalliance with something rebellious, like being a blood traitor or declaring they're going to sack off the family and move to France, or being gay, and most of them go crawling back."

"And they thought you'd do that?"

"Pollux did. He came to find me, about a year after I'd left Hogwarts, and asked if I was quite done yet with my rebellion. He had a nice wife in mind, he said, and he was willing to offer me some substantial concessions if I'd just come back to the family. It was a month before Regulus died. They'd never put any pressure on me to join the Death Eaters, he said. I later assumed that they knew something was up with Regulus, by that point."

Sirius got up, and started to pace back and forth along the wall, three steps one way then three back the other.

"Even then, he didn't properly disown me. He could have then, or after he thought I'd killed all those Muggles, or at any point when I was in Azkaban. I think he was worried, about the bloodline. Of the male line, which is all that matters to these people, there was me, and him, Cygnus and Arcturus. They were all married to women too old to produce further children, so I was their only real hope."

"Your family," she said, not really sure what to say, "is a mess."

"And every time I think I've dealt with it all, then I find something else to wonder about." He looked sad as he said it, still pacing backwards and forwards. Luna had left the room, Hermione realised, and it was just the two of them here. She didn't like being antagonistic with Sirius, even when he was being a pain, because he wasn't a bad person. At times like this, she wanted to scoop him up and give him a hug. Only in the same way she would Ron or Harry. Nothing meant in a romantic way.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's nothing to do with you," he said, slightly harshly. "I don't know if I even want sympathy. Anyway," he brightened. "It's your family, too, on a technicality. Well, it isn't. We've faked you being one of us, and hopefully well enough to fool the clever ones."

"You'll have to help me," she said.

"I wouldn't send anyone into that pit of snakes without help," he said, and shuddered.

"Oh, Sirius," said Luna, wandering back into the room with Ginny at her heel. "Who in your family is most likely to accept Hermione?"

"Regulus," he said, "without a doubt. Or Grandfather Pollux. Arcturus likes a drink, he's alright when he's sober but you don't want to cross him after a few glasses. My dear mother is a nightmare, and the less said of my father, the better." He stopped pacing and crossed his arms, as if daring somebody to ask more questions about his family.

"Regulus is at school until the Easter holiday," said Ginny, throwing herself to the floor beside the coffee table bearing a stack of papers and parchments.. "So unless you think it can wait until then, Pollux it is. Unless you approach Regulus on a Hogsmeade weekend."

"That isn't a bad plan," said Hermione, thinking as much of it through as she could. "I'd prefer to talk to Regulus than anybody else."

"He's a Death Eater," said Sirius, resuming his pacing. "He knows Occlumency. He's clever, and ruthless, and he reports almost everything to my parents and to Lucius Malfoy.

Hermione ignored that. She knew all of that about Regulus; he still felt like the safest option, to her. And it was a contradiction to what he'd said himself, just moments ago. "I think a young woman who knows nobody might feel more comfortable meeting someone similar to her own age," she said. "And after all, I should be thinking as Lyra Black, not as Hermione Granger."

"Oh, good," said Luna, ignoring Sirius' mouth opening to argue back.. "We have a plan, of sorts, at the very least. One with less of a margin for error than others, too."

"Well," said Hermione. "There's still quite a few things that could go wrong, isn't there?"

"We've been over them," sighed Ginny, "and yes, if everything on that list goes wrong then we're going to blow ourselves up, sky high, into little glittery pieces of toast. But it's implausible they all will, isn't it?"

"You're mixing your Muggle metaphors again," said Luna, giggling.

"The point is," Ginny continued, prodding Luna with her foot, "that we will probably be fine, and if not, we will be so badly fucked we'll be dead, and won't know."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," muttered Hermione. It didn't, but then, what else did they have to do? "But, the quicker we get access to the Blacks, the quicker we can get access to possible Death Eater information and to the Horcruxes." That was the point of all of this, anyway."

"Horcruxes?" asked Sirius, stopping where he was and spinning on his heel to face Hermione. He looked panicked, fear rising behind his eyes like a flood of water. Why, Hermione didn't know. It wasn't as if they didn't know what they were up against.

"Horcruxes," confirmed Ginny, lazily. "Snake, and Harry, they're irrelevant, right? So just the cup, locket, diadem, ring, and diary. Merlin, I'd hoped never to have had to see that diary again." She visibly shuddered, and Luna reached out to put her hand on Ginny's shoulder. "But," she continued, brushing Luna off, "anything for Harry."

"Horcruxes," said Sirius again. His voice was slow, cautious, with a current of anger growing underneath.. "Multiple. More than one."

"Seven, total," said Ginny. "But like I said, two of them are irrelevant." She paused, and her eyes went wide like saucers. "Shit. You don't know that. You thought there was only the one."

 **a/n: Thank you to Rachael, who helped me sort this chapter out after deleting it and then undeleting it in a mess of confusion over whether it worked or not.**

 **And an extra thank you to those who have left reviews recently, I've had some lovely ones and they make me so happy when I get them.**


	32. Chapter 32: Blame

**Chapter Thirty Two: Blame**

 _Sirius_

 _February 1979. Saltburn_

"Seven," said Sirius, feeling as though all he was any use for right now was repeating Ginny's words in an incredulous tone. "Seven. And nobody thought this was something I ought to know?"

"Of course it is," said Luna. "I assumed you did."

"So did I," said Ginny.

"I should have said," said Hermione, her face slightly slack. "I didn't know, Sirius, we told you about the locket, we told you that Voldemort had a Horcrux, I didn't realise we hadn't said the rest…" She tailed off, looking apologetic, but Sirius didn't have much time for that.

"And when exactly were you going to tell me?" he asked, standing up and letting the chair hit the floor behind him with the force of his movement. "Did you think it might be worth it at some stage?"

"Yes, I, we, we thought we had!" said Hermione, shrilly, while Ginny nodded beside her. It was all so fucking inadequate, Sirius thought. They all knew, and he didn't, and this was supposed to have been a fresh start. Working together, as equals, not withholding information and fucking this.

"You keep saying to trust me, Hermione, but you don't, because if you fucking did you'd have thought to impart that little bit of information that Voldemort is more fucking immortal than we'd thought. When were you going to do something about it? Have you collected them and got rid of them already? No? So we were going to ignore it until we rocked up on James and Lily's doorstep and Voldemort's still fucking unkillable?"

"No!" she squeaked. "No! I was going to get together a plan, with all the information we have, and we could find them, but you got captured, and we've been busy with tonight, and there's tomorrow night, and…"

He didn't wait for her to finish. "All the information? So we don't even know where they fucking are?"

"No," said Ginny, "but we can find out, and Sirius, for fuck's sake, sit down, you're being so far beyond unreasonable."

"Fuck you all," said Sirius, and stormed out. The back door swung into the wall as he left, leaving a dent the size of a galleon, and then shut behind him. He had nowhere to go, but that wasn't the point. He was done, done with Hermione and her attempts to make him feel as though this wasn't all because she didn't trust him with that information, still, after a month of this.

And turning it round on him, it being his fault because he was captured! Well next time he'd let her go off and face the Death Eater alone, because he wouldn't be stepping up.

He threw himself down onto the grass.

This was just like the summer, and the autumn, when she'd been trying to stop him for no fucking good reason then it took someone she loved dying to make her change her mind. She didn't care, not like he did. She didn't see why this was the most important thing any of them would do.

He was turning it all over in his mind, coming up with further things he should have said to Hermione about exactly why her conduct had been terrible and she should have told him the information from the start, like June the start, not even November, when he heard the door clicking open and then shut again behind him. He chose to ignore it. If it was Hermione, she could go back right where she came from, and Ginny and Luna were equally unwelcome.

He thought about exploding the tree at the end of the garden. Nobody needed that stupid, ridiculous, annoying, fucking tree.

"Fuck off," he said, to whoever it was.

"Right back at you," said Ginny, sitting next to him on the grass. "Ah, fuck, the grass is wet."

Sirius hadn't noticed.

"It isn't Hermione's fault," said Ginny. "Well, it is, but it's mine as well. Less so Luna's, because she doesn't know as much about the Horcruxes as Hermione and I do. But it's the fault of us collectively, and not hers alone, so although I believe you've got the right to shout at us you're going to have to stop making it all about her."

"She should have said."

"So should I. So should Luna. That's what I'm saying, you idiotic fleabag." She flopped backwards too, so they were both lying in the grass level with one another. Sirius looked firmly at the sky, to avoid the tiny ginger thing next to him. "Shout at all of us, and then calm down, and talk to us. You're being a fucking arse, you know that."

"Fine. Ginny, you're an utter shit and I hate you."

"Better. Keep going, if you need to."

"I'm going to explode the tree."

"I wouldn't," she said. "Statute of Secrecy. Muggles live round here. And Hermione's quite attached to it. But mostly the Statute of Secrecy thing."

"I don't care," he said.

"Get it all out, Sirius."

"I hate my family. I hate that we have to go near them, for this."

"They're shits. I agree with you, there."

"The diary," he said, eventually, after a few more runs of expletives and insults. "Harry told me a story about a diary, that involved you, and a shade of Tom Riddle."

"That's the one. Voldemort possessed me via his Horcrux, and that's the story you know. Harry killed it with a basilisk fang. Not sure where we're going to get one, this time around."

"I do know a bit about Horcruxes," he said. "Perhaps somebody should have bothered to ask me. And I'm sorry, by the way, that all of that happened to you."

"Well," she said. "It was a long time ago. And if it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else. I just, you know, I thought I was rid of that. It was behind me. And the knowledge that it's back out in the world, well, it sort of hurts."

"I'm sorry," said Sirius, who was now beginning to regret his outburst slightly, considering Ginny was crying and considering that, obviously, having been possessed by Voldemort was worse than having not been given some information. Awkwardly, he reached out to hug her. "You wouldn't want to talk about Horcruxes."

"No," she said, accepting the hug and sniffling slightly into his shoulder. "I don't. But it's exactly the reason I should, because eleven-year-old me, if I exist by then, shouldn't have to go through all that again, and neither should anyone else." She had such a note of determination in her voice, and Sirius liked to imagine it being present in the tiny first year she had been, too.

He had a lot he could say. "What do we do?" he settled on.

"Apologise to Hermione," said Ginny. "I mean that. She didn't deserve to be singled out. She was just doing exactly what I was doing, probably, which was assuming you knew and hoping that we had a bit of time before we had to deal with all of this. How much do you know about what she and Harry and Ron did?"

"Nothing," said Sirius, truthfully.

"Well," said Ginny, "they spent a year, or the best part of, trailing round the country looking for Horcruxes. She spent months with one hanging round her neck. Ron told me about that, it sucked all the happiness out of you. She broke into Gringotts, and then possibly more impressively, broke out again. On a fucking dragon. And broke into the Ministry, which was under Voldemort's control. Stabbed a Horcrux herself. Survived Fiendfyre. The usual. Here you are," she said, handing him a piece of pale blue paper covered in Hermione's handwriting. "A list. So you know exactly what we know."

Sirius was forced to admit that it was an impressive list, and that perhaps he should not have said what he did. But not aloud. Luckily, Ginny seemed to understand that.

"How is Hermione?" he said, instead.

"Luna's with her," replied Ginny. "It was agreed I might have a better chance of making you see sense than she would."

"I dunno," said Sirius. "Luna's great."

"Yeah, and she does the emotional, touchy-feely stuff, which is what Hermione's in need of, and I do not. I do the role of 'get up off your floor and sort your fucking life out' better than Luna does. Different approaches. Sometimes you need love, sometimes you just need a big fat kick up the arse. Or to be called an arse. Either way." Ginny paused. "You noticed anything weird about Luna lately?"

"No." Nothing weirder than usual, at any rate, which is what he assumed Ginny was asking.

"Oh. Well, I think she's being strange. You know, more so than Luna is. She keeps fussing over me. If I didn't know better, I'd say Mum was possessing her."

"I'll let you know if she starts doing that to me."

"Sirius, mate, I love you and all but I doubt you'd notice. Your people skills are up there on a par with Harry's."

"I'm fine. I'm observant." He sighed, feeling as though he was going to lose this argument. "Everything is fine. Well. My leg feels like it's going to fall off, you know. The curse, whatever Regulus did, it's still bad. It bleeds, sometimes."

"Well, as your resident pretend Healer, my professional opinion is that it won't, which you know. And, don't change the subject and attempt to get sympathy." She narrowed her eyes. "I've been dealing with shysters my whole life. I'll get you some more of that balm, when we go in. We need you on top form, don't we? You're an arse when you're on bed rest, and we've got Horcruxes to find, and shit."

"Got Horcruxes to find, and shit," repeated Sirius. "Because that is how you bring down a madman. Find Horcruxes and shit."

Ginny laughed. "Come on. Get your sorry self inside and apologise. I've got to go and meet Remus, anyway. If there aren't any more emergencies in the wizarding world that he cancels on me for, anyway."

On that note, Ginny pushed herself up, and began to wander back to the house.

"Ginny?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted. Now go say that to Hermione."

"What about Luna?"

Ginny shrugged, her hand on the door handle.

"You might as well. I doubt she'll care, but sometimes it's good to complete the set."

Reluctantly, he got himself up too and started towards the back door. He already regretted his outburst, and even more so some of what he'd thought about Hermione and her motivations. Though, it still felt like a bloody big thing to omit from their little chats about their plans and what they would do next. A Horcrux, that Regulus would get for them, seemed manageable, even if all of them had avoided that. Nobody had wanted to discuss if Regulus would be an unavoidable sacrifice, if he would have to die in order for their quest to succeed.

Or if they had, they hadn't wanted to discuss it in front of Sirius. He got that. Sirius didn't much want to discuss that himself. He had placed Regulus' death somewhere in the middle of September 1979. Hermione had said, to the best of her knowledge, that he had died the day he had gone to retrieve the Horcrux. Regulus' days were numbered, he had seven months, and there was a chance there was nothing that Sirius could do about that.

He buried that again.

Which was all Hermione had been trying to do. She hadn't wanted to think about the Horcruxes she knew about, in the same way he hadn't been wanting to think about the one they did know about.

And, like Ginny had said, they all knew, and he didn't, and it wasn't a conspiracy.

He really did need to apologise.

"Hermione?" he said, pushing open the back door. Getting no response, he paused to repair the dent in the wall with his wand, smoothing out the plaster. "Hermione?"

"If you're coming to blame me again," she said, sitting at the kitchen table with Luna, "then you can leave the way you came in."

"I will go," said Luna.

"Sorry, Luna," said Sirius, as she walked out.

"That's quite alright," she replied, taking the floral head-thing from her head. "I don't much mind that you said what you did."

"And sorry, Hermione," he said, leaning back against the kitchen wall next to the fridge. He'd just about got used to the fridge, but he still questioned the point of it. "I shouldn't have blamed you."

"No," she said, filing him with a glare. "You shouldn't. But you always seem to blame me, more than the others, and that's not fair."

"Yes," he said. "I do."

"Did you realise that before or after Ginny told you?"

"During," he said, because there was very little point in not telling the truth. He was a lot of undesirable things, and she knew that well, but he wasn't a liar. He wasn't very good at it, he never had been.

"We seem to be spending a lot of time apologising to one another, lately."

"If you don't mind me saying," he said, assuming she probably did mind, "your apology the other day wasn't much good. You still didn't give me a chance to actually talk for myself."

"Oh," she said.

"Yeah, oh."

She sat there, and he stood, and they both avoided looking at the other too closely. Then she spoke.

"What would you have said, if I'd given you a chance?"

"Bit late, isn't it?" He couldn't keep the tone from his voice, the one that said it didn't fucking matter, that he hated the whole thing, even though he tried.

"I want to hear it," she said, quietly. "And I think you'll feel better for saying it."

He doubted that very much. He kicked one foot up against the wall, his face angled down.

"I didn't think it was a drunken mistake," he said. "I've had a few of those, you know. And this didn't feel like that. I suppose I did want to try it again. If you don't, we don't, but it would have been nice to have had the chance to say this."

"Okay."

"And," he was continuing, for what it was worth, "I liked it. I get that you didn't, because despite everything, I do understand that I'm not an attractive proposition, am I? I mean, how would you even explain me to your parents? Oh, hey, Mum and Dad. Here's my boyfriend. That man you heard about on the news, before, the one who was a mass murderer? Yeah, well, he's not, but you're going to have to take my word for that, because there's no proof. And he's twenty years older than me. And, honestly, he's difficult, and disappears rather than confronting his problems these days, and he got his best mate killed. Not on purpose, but it was his fault.

"But you know all of that. I was honest with you. I've always been honest with you. I hadn't kissed anyone, I hadn't got close to anyone emotionally, except Remus, and he doesn't count, for fifteen fucking years, and you shut me down. You didn't ask what I thought. And now I don't know what I think," he ended, "I don't know what I'd do."

"Really?" she asked.

"You asked what I thought," he said. He had no interest in continuing this conversation, not really. It wasn't how he'd thought it would go. Apology, done, dusted, out the room, off to go and lurk upstairs again, where he belonged.

"I did," she replied. "I think it's my turn to apologise, isn't it? I'm sorry, Sirius. I should have asked what you thought."

"Yeah," he said. "You should." He thought about his answer to that, and began again. "But, things don't always go as they should, do they? I accept your apology." It was slightly stilted, still, overly formal, but it got the point across. He pushed himself away from the wall, and went to the sink to pour himself a glass of water.

"I assumed you wouldn't want to kiss me again," she said, which was the thing that really startled Sirius. He dropped the glass on the floor, water splashing down his front.

"Shit," he said, not entirely sure if he was referring to the smashed glass or to her statement. "Er," he stalled, unable to find his wand in amongst his clothes, "hang on, I…"

" _Reparo,_ " said Hermione, from behind him, and the glass swirled up from the floor, righting itself and landing back in his hand. "I assume that's what you were trying to do."

"Can't find my wand."

"Where did you last see it?" she said. "That's what my mum used to ask. I never found it very helpful, but I still find myself saying it."

"No idea. You're right, it isn't very helpful."

He pulled himself up onto the kitchen counter, sitting there with his legs hanging down. He leant over to refill the glass from the tap, and sat sipping at the water, looking at Hermione, not quite sure what the best thing to do next was.

She was leaning up against the table, now. Small, she was. A grey knitted dress, cut to resemble the clothes she was used to without standing out too much, as she'd never embraced the fashions of the time period they were in.

"You said to me once," he started, "that you were trying to work out what kind of person I was, which version of me was real. Did you ever manage that?"

"No," she admitted. "I didn't. I still wonder, though, sometimes. You're not the Sirius Harry believed in, the man who would save him and who could do no wrong. Nobody is that man. And you're not Professor Snape's evil man who would happily throw him to a werewolf, either. You're not the blood-traitor, the boy who'll never do anything worthwhile, the drain on resources your parents thought, but you're not the hero, either. You didn't murder Peter Pettigrew, but you want to."

"No, I'm not a hero. Who says I'm a hero?"

"Harry. Remus, he always portrayed you like that a bit, after he'd worked out the truth of what happened in October '81. Fred and George, but that might just be because of the map."

"The map wasn't even my idea," said Sirius. "It was Peter's idea, and James and Remus did most of the work. My role was mostly to get detention, so the teachers were distracted and the three of them could do what they needed to do." He smiled, at the memory. "We learnt early on that I am not suited to quietly sneaking around."

"I'm sure it's a role you did well," she said. She came and sat next to him. "Do you know something? I've never sat on a kitchen worktop before. I wasn't allowed."

"And there's the difference between us," he said. "I wasn't allowed, either, but I spent half my childhood on them."

"You're exaggerating."

"Yeah, I am. Where I actually spent half my childhood was a lot less fun." He wanted to gloss over all of that; it was not the time for more of the reasons why Sirius Black was a pitiful figure. It was not that it didn't work, to get the sympathy of witches, but he didn't want a sympathy kiss.

It was becoming slightly clearer what it was that he did want.

A chance to do this over, mostly. He wondered about her Time Turner, her little device that had brought her here, maybe that could help him here. He could nip back just a little bit, back to the summer, or even the autumn, and not fuck this up quite so badly as he always seemed to.

All his friends had said he was good with witches. He was good at getting them. He was terrible, beyond terrible, at keeping them. Once they'd seen past the face, the body, both of which had been very attractive at Hogwarts and just after, they weren't interested.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"No."

"It can help to, you know."

"I know that, but I don't want to. Not now. I just, there's been too much today."

"Did I say sorry?" she asked. "For not having thought to tell you things."

"You did, I think," he said. Not that it mattered.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't know how I feel about this. About you."

"You don't need to know," he said. "It isn't like I'm going anywhere much, is it?"

"No. Neither am I, I suppose."

"There we are then, it's not like we have to know anything now, is it?" He stuck by his thought from earlier, that he did know what he felt, and it was that he wanted a new start, a fresh go at this.

"I still think you're a bit of an idiot, too."

"Hermione," he said, with a small smile, "everyone does. An arse, too," he said, remembering Ginny's words from earlier. "A bit of a dickhead. Annoying."

"I don't think you're annoying," she said, a little too quickly for it to be the complete truth.

"I annoy myself, at times."

He twisted the bit of paper in his pocket, the one with the list of the Horcruxes on it. She fiddled with her teacup, which had migrated over from the table to the countertop with her. It had just the smallest amount of tea left in it, just the way she always left her cup, the tea milky with no sugar and by this point usually freezing cold. He'd once watched her reheat the same cup of tea six times in an afternoon.

"This list," he said, even though he wasn't sure if he wanted to have this discussion now, not when they weren't arguing with or sniping at or just ignoring each other. "What are we going to do with it? About the things?"

"Horcruxes?" she asked. "You're allowed to say the name, it's not like Voldemort. No Death Eaters will turn up."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh," she said, looking at her teacup, like she had been for the majority of their conversation. "They put a Taboo on the word Voldemort, in the last year of the war. If you said it, Death Eaters arrived instantly. Of course we fell for it, twice, and Kingsley did, almost everyone at least once. Because only the people who were most opposed to him used the name."

"And what happened?" When are you going to tell me everything, was his other thought, but he was now beginning to wonder if that was reasonable. There were things she should never have withheld, but these details? She did not know the details of everything he had done.

"Well, the first time, we Stunned them and left them there," she said. "The second time, we got captured, they worked out who we were, ended up having a very, very bad evening with a couple of your cousins."

"All evenings with my cousins are terrible, because I'm assuming you're not talking about Andromeda. Narcissa's main redeeming feature is that she isn't cruel like Bella is, just passive and more concerned about keeping up appearances than she is about almost anything else."

"She loved her child."

"Everyone should love their child. It shouldn't be something that's an extra." There was something bothering him about this conversation, something he thought he ought to have remembered. His brain had never been quite right after Azkaban. It was slower, his memory fumbled when he was remembering things, and he'd come up against a brick wall in there from time to time, immovable and frustrating.

Then it came to him. "That night wasn't the night Bellatrix, the night she," he started.

"Tortured me?" Her eyes came up from the teacup for seconds, and met his. "Yes."

"Bitch," he said. "I'm going to kill her, you know. I'm not going to let Molly Weasley do it this time." He wasn't on the counter any more, he was rooting round for wherever it was he had left his wand.

"Sirius," she said. "Don't be an idiot. I can look after myself, and you're not wearing any shoes."

He looked down. "At least I'm wearing socks, this time." They did have a hole, a few holes, but that wasn't important.

"It's February."

"I know warming charms."

She started to laugh, clutching her teacup in one hand and the edge of the counter in the other, her head bowed over with her laughter. "You're ridiculous," she forced out. "Why won't you fight Death Eaters in shoes, like the rest of us?"

"Obviously," he said, "it just wouldn't be a fair fight, if I was wearing shoes. I like to give the others a chance, given I'm such an excellent fighter." It was just a trace of his old style, the cockiness and the self-assured note in his voice. He took up a fighting pose, a wooden spoon Ginny had left on the counter earlier serving as a wand.

"I see," she said. "And the wooden spoon, that's to give the Death Eaters a chance, too?"

"Exactly."

He wasn't sure why he was acting like this, playing the fool in his old, holey socks for her. He messed everything up, ultimately, and she'd get pissed off with his stupidity in time. Oh, wait. That had probably happened already, given the way she had been with him in recent weeks.

"I'm sorry that I'm a dickhead," he said.

"You're not." She put the teacup down. "Well, you are, sometimes."

"There we are," he said, leaning onto the counter next to her, still holding his wooden spoon. "It goes from sometimes, to most of the time, to all the time, to 'why the fuck are we still anywhere near this man'. And then you run away, screaming, into the dust."

"I'm not going to run away." She leant forwards a little, her voice soft. "And you and Ginny are terrible at Muggle metaphors."

He thought about retorts to that, about things he could bite back with or ways he could gently make digs at her in return. If this had been Ginny was talking to, he wouldn't really have hesitated to say one of the six or seven things that first sprung to mind.

"I know," he said, instead.

He wanted her to like him.

He hadn't really realised that, before.

He decided something.

It was probably going to go horribly wrong.

He fiddled around with words for a bit, but that post-Azkaban fuzz in his brain was causing him problems again, so he stopped. Instead, he shifted his weight from the counter, turning slightly, and kissed her. A quick one, a light press of his lips onto hers, just lingering there for long enough to show that it had been done completely and utterly on purpose. He stepped away, neatly, into the centre of the kitchen.

"I'm going to leave it to you, now," he said, as her hand went to her lips, tracing where his mouth had been as if she could not believe that had happened. "If you don't want to do it again, if you'd like things to continue as they were, then just don't do anything again. I wanted you to know, that I did like it, I did like you, shit, I do like you, and fuck it, I'd quite like to do it more often. But the Quaffle's in your court, now, as the Muggles say, and I think that's all I wanted to say."

Before she could answer, and with those beautiful eyes of hers still fixed on him, he spun on his shoeless heels and went back outside. Maybe his wand was on the grass. It was the most logical place to find the damned stick.

She caught up with him before he'd even gone a couple of steps out onto the wet grass, and pulled on his arm to turn him around.

"Muggles don't have Quaffles, you dickhead," she said, and she kissed him back.

 _Luna_

 _February 1979, Devon_

She Apparated to somewhere she felt at home, and this, well, she could not say it was the only contender, but it was where she had ended up. A small, quiet orchard, almost at the halfway point between the house she had grown up in and the Weasley's Burrow. Her parents were abroad, but she had not wanted to see the old house. She had found that difficult enough, when she had been there to attach the charms that would alert her if her parents entered the building. There would be somewhat of a lot of explaining to do, when they came home, and well, she wanted to be prepared.

So here she sat, in the orchard, close enough to a home but far enough away. She had been here only a handful of times, but it had the warm, rewarding smells of familiarity and the feel of a place where she belonged. It was where she had first met Ginny Weasley, chasing her brothers around and trying to get a broomstick from one of them. Luna forgot which. She found many of the Weasley brothers interchangeable, in that they had similar values and paid little attention to the tiny, blonde witch.

It was difficult to find a place one belonged, when one was so far from their home.

Temporally, of course, given that she was half a mile from the location of her birth and childhood. Time was a construct, if you looked at it from a theoretical point of view, with humans having assigned values to it that suited them rather than what the universe dictated. Months with thirty one days. It did not work, did it?

But you could know something logically, and still feel it was wrong.

She sat down on the grass, and began to pluck blades. She could weave a tiny basket from this. Nests, for birds, ready for the spring. She pulled out her wand, once she had a decent amount of grass, and began to charm it into nests.

Luna had been tidying, when she'd chanced to look from the bathroom window out into the garden. And there had been Sirius, and Hermione, and thankfully they were not fighting, but kissing. It had caused a strange lurch in Luna's stomach, which she hadn't been prepared for. She had expected pure happiness.

It was funny when your own body did what you did not expect. It was a more rational judgement than what her mind had given her, she supposed.

The lurch had matched the one she had experienced when she had seen the way that Ginny smiled at those letters from Remus.

It was somewhat lonely being Luna, right now.

She had love, of a sort, of course, but it was becoming clearer each day since she had met that love that it was not one that would be returned. And she'd had a semblance of moving on, lately, but then it was not fine once more, and in truth, she did not know how to deal with that.

The same way she always had, perhaps.


	33. Chapter 33: Deja Vu

**Chapter Thirty-Three: Deja Vu**

 _Ginny_

 _March 1979, rural north Wales_

"You came," said Remus Lupin, by way of greeting, as he approached Ginny in the pub they'd chosen as a meeting place. It was the greeting he had used last time they'd met, and the time after that.

The pub was one she'd been to before a few times, mainly with Harry and sometimes with Ron and Hermione or Bill and Fleur. In her time, in 2002, the future, it was a bit of a smart bar, a destination pub for wizards, really, stuck as it was on the side of a mountain miles from anywhere as if someone had used a very strong Sticking Charm. Maybe they had.

In this time, it was a perfectly ordinary bar, still clearly wizarding, but without the trendy trappings of its future self. The floor slanted slightly, which was probably a symptom of the way it leant off the side of the hill, but not as much as the ground below them appeared to from the outside. To begin with the slope was disconcerting, but you got used to it. A single barman served beers at the bar, slowly, while a hassled looking barmaid ran around doing everything else.

"Of course I did," said Ginny. Why wouldn't she have?

"Sorry I've had to arrange it for here," said Remus, sitting down opposite her at the table she'd chosen between a window and the fire. "It's the only place I could think of that all three of my friends are banned from, and so are your cousins."

"Why is that important?" asked Ginny, but she felt like she could probably guess, knowing who the friends in question would be.

"They'd be here, staring at us, making funny comments, generally making an absolute nuisance of themselves. They're idiots, and they like nothing more to embarrass me when I'm on a… when I'm out with a woman. You should have seen how they were just over your letters." He sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair. "No, you shouldn't. What happened there doesn't reflect well on any of us."

"That's not very nice," she said.

"They're my best friends," he said. "And I think I'm giving you a bad impression. They'd do anything for me, and I'd do anything for them. But they've got a childish sense of humour. And they'd do it to any of us." He rubbed his head again. "Anyway, what can I get you to drink?"

"I'm fine," she said, indicating the glass of mead that sat on the table in front of her. "I should have waited, and offered you something." She hadn't wanted him to buy her a drink; she knew from Sirius that he had very little money of his own, having recently left his job at the Ministry after somebody made a comment about the full moon in front of him.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his brows knitting together, but Ginny sent him on his way to buy a drink for just himself.

He came back a few minutes later, with a pint of something for himself and a small metal plate of chips.

"I felt like I should offer you something," he said. "I did invite you, after all."

"Thanks," she said, and took one, because it would be rude to refuse. They did that little choreographed dance of small talk, of being polite over the chips and talking of the weather and other things that weren't important at all.

"Sorry I had to cancel on you before," he said. "I didn't want to, but there weren't many of us around, and we needed everyone we can get."

"Saving people comes before some witch," she said.

"It does," he said. "Most of us struggle to keep relationships, except for those who married someone in the Order. It's tricky, if you can't explain to someone where you're disappearing off to all the time, or what you're doing, or anything. And, well, we all know that it's quite high risk."

Ginny had a painful lurch in her chest at that point, as an image flashed into her brain of the older Remus lying still, quiet and very much dead in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. The image sat there, and whatever she did she couldn't shift it.

"Do you think it will be worth it?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied without a moment's hesitation. "It's, it's more than about just one person, isn't it? What I do with my life probably won't make a massive amount of difference, but if I can help stop the war, it might."

"What about your family?"

"My mum's a Muggle. She doesn't really understand all of this, except, well, something happened when Voldemort first started to rise, in the family, and she doesn't like the whole thing mentioned now. My dad, for similar reasons, would prefer I didn't get involved. He's a wizard, he knows full well what's happening, but he thinks personal safety should come above everyone's."

As they spoke, three elderly blokes entered the pub, and at first Ginny paid them almost no notice. She pulled her wand from her pocket, though, after they paused at the door, shuffled around, and began to point directly at them, muttering amongst themselves. One of them, wearing an olive green argyle jumper, nudged another, the slightly overweight one in navy blue tweed. The third, the bald one, grabbed both by the arm and turned them away from where Remus and Ginny were sitting. She tightened her grip on her wand, keeping it under the table and her eye on the three men.

Even waiting at the bar, they kept stealing glances towards Ginny and Remus, talking in whispers, in between loud, almost staged conversation on other topics.

"Remus," she said, as they collected pints from the bar and started walking towards their table. "Don't look, but there are some men behind us, acting very suspiciously."

"How many?" he asked, drawing his own wand.

"Three," she said, and had a thought about this.

"Fucking hell, not again," said Remus, with a sigh, which implied to Ginny that he was thinking the same as she was, not that she could reveal that really. "Remember I said that my three best friends were barred from this pub?"

Ginny nodded. "You think that's your friends?"

"Let's say that Moody keeps his stash of Polyjuice easily accessible," said Remus, with a long suffering air. "And yes, I've questioned that. He says it's in case we need it for missions. I think he underestimates just what lengths my friends are willing to go to in order to cause chaos."

"At least it isn't Death Eaters," said Ginny. She wasn't prepared to meet James, or Sirius, or Peter. She wasn't sure which of them she wanted to meet least. "Should we ignore them?"

"Nah," said Remus. He leant forward, whispering, a conspiratorial grin lighting his face. "They're acting suspiciously. Let's hex the shit out of them, as if we think they're Death Eaters."

Ginny thought that would likely end with Remus being banned from this pub, too, but she also thought the Remus she'd known deserved the odd bit of fun. And, well, she kind of wanted to hex Peter Pettigrew.

"Okay."

"On three. One, two, three."

They both cast, Remus aiming a Jelly-Legs Jinx at the bald man, and Ginny neatly netting the other two with a fancy little charm Luna had taught her that gave the unfortunate target the impression of their head swelling up. She thought it appropriate, in this scenario.

The bald man fell to the floor, wobbling down and kicking the table onto his own head, argyle jumper man started clutching his head and dropped his wand, and the third hexed Remus back.

"You absolute tosser, Remus!" he shouted, as Remus began to grow a beard at an alarmingly quick rate.

"You're the tosser, Sirius," said Remus, raising his wand to prevent the beard growing, then flicking it to cause tentacles to sprout on the tweed jacket man's face. "I'm sure you're Sirius, anyway."

"I'm Oberon Tadworthy!" the man shouted, as he hexed Remus with some sort of colour changing charm, and Remus turned purple.

"Oberon Tadworthy is your favourite Quidditch player." Sirius, if he was Sirius, stumbled over the bald man on the floor as the tentacles turned into flowers, which started to grow in a carpet of foliage over his face and head.

"Fine," he said, from the floor. "I'm Sirius Black. And who may this lovely lady be?"

"Pleased to meet you, Sirius," said Ginny. "Philomena Prewett." She held out her hand, because that was polite, but Sirius was still struggling and looked more flowerbed than man.

"And you know that," said Remus, deftly blocking a hex from the jelly-legged man on the floor. "Because you've come here to stalk us. Which I don't appreciate. I considered worse spells than this. And James, your head isn't actually swollen, physically. You can stop clutching it. Metaphorically, you're doomed, of course."

"How did you know I was James?"

"You'd never agree to be the bald one."

"Got me again, Lupin. You win this time."

"I usually do."

"If you're going to win against him," said the bald man, who by a process of deduction was Peter, "you're going to need to learn to fight when you're down."

"If you're going to win against him, you're going to have to be faster," retorted James. "Took you ages to get that second spell in, and he had time to block it."

"If you're going to win against me," Remus butted in, "then you ought not to try taking me on when I have a very observant companion, who was on to you from the moment you walked in here, and you should probably not drop your wand, either."

All three Polyjuiced Marauders looked as though they were opening their mouths to respond when the barman marched over, a half-poured pint of ale in one hand and his wand in the other.

"Fighting!" he shouted, "in my bar! Get out, all of you, you're all banned! For life!"

"No tolerance, here," muttered Sirius. "The Hog's Head lets you fight at least four or five times before they ban you." He turned to go, then thought better of it, and grabbed his pint before he went. "I'm taking this. I paid good silver for this."

"OUT!" roared the barman, and shot sparks at them from his wand. All five of them hurried out the door, sparks flying past them, Sirius slopping half of his pint onto the floor when their speed increased.

"Sorry," said Peter, when they were outside, light rain falling onto their heads. "It was supposed to be a bit of fun." His hair was growing back, giving him a strange, patchy look as the Polyjuice stopped having its effect. James was shooting upwards, next to him, his hair darkening from white-grey to black. Sirius' body didn't change.

"Just to be sure," said Remus, eyeing him. "This is Sirius, and not some Death Eater, yes?"

"He was being a vain idiot," said James, almost entirely back to his own, Harry-with-hazel-eyes appearance now. "It took us a good ten minutes to persuade him to take the potion."

"I was going to somewhere there was going to be a girl I hadn't met before," muttered the old man who was Sirius Black, swirling the remains of his pint around with a face on. "One that I've been reliably informed was not only very attractive, but clever, and on our side of this whole war thing."

"War thing," said James, throwing his hands in the air. "War thing."

"A girl Remus is interested in," said Peter. "And you know our code." He looked at Ginny. "Sorry," he said. "He's a dick."

Remus was blushing furiously by this point, and looked as though he wanted to hex all of them over again, standing in the cold and wet on the lane that lead up to the little pub on the side of the hill.

"I'm going to hex all of you," he said, with a grimace. "Hex all of you into the fucking ground, and if you pop back out I'm going to hex you right back in there."

"Sorry, Remus," said Peter, and the other two followed suit with an apology.

Ginny was left observing them while they debated what to do next; James and Sirius in favour of going down to Order headquarters, and Remus and Peter preferring the option of going home.

"Without you lot," Remus said.

It was funny, watching them. She had intended to hate Peter, but the small, slightly chubby man had been the first to apologise for their prank on Remus and her, and had seemed to mean the apology far more than the other two had. Sirius wanted to kill Peter. He made no secret of that. But watching him here, with his friends, before he had become a Death Eater, Ginny had a different plan in mind. If she was in time. If not, she reckoned she'd happily support Sirius killing him.

"I'm fine, whatever we do," she said.

Which meant that they ended up back at Sirius' house in Lincolnshire, where Ginny had been on that second day they'd been in the year 1978. She preferred not to remember that time, the time when they had been thinking they would go straight back.

In a way, it was much better to know that they were no longer trying to get back to the time they had left. She would have, in a heartbeat, but that was no longer the point. It was a bigger calling than her personal happiness, she thought. Remus had said the war was more important than some witch. It was.

The house was much the same as it had been then, chaos. Four boys living there full time, with few if any cleaning skills, had not improved it. It transpired there was no longer a light in the bathroom, and that nobody cared about that. Neither did they care that a corner of the living room rocked gently if you stood in it.

"James was doing experimental charms again," the young Sirius had explained with a shrug, and nobody had said anything else. So Ginny had left it there, and thanked her lucky stars that Fred and George had never met the Marauders in their prime.

She had been hoping for a quiet evening with Remus, to try and resolve the confusion in her head about him. When that was not forthcoming, she had hoped for a reasonably quiet evening with him and his friends. At no point had she hoped for Mad-Eye Moody's head sticking out of the fireplace, causing Peter to drop his goblet onto Remus' head.

"Ow!"

"Sorry!"

"Merlin, Moody, d'you think you could warn us?"

"Lupin, Black, I need you out tonight," said Mad-Eye.

"Remus is on a date," said Peter. He pointed at Ginny, helpfully.

"I'm going to come through."

"Please don't," muttered James. He turned to Ginny, as a two-eyed, two-legged version of Mad-Eye Moody crawled through the grate. "Last time he was here he criticised our entire security system, ate all our fruit, and then shouted at Sirius for being a twat. I mean, he was being a twat, but still."

"Ah, is this the Prewett girl?" Mad-Eye asked, turning his attention and his wand onto Ginny the moment his feet set themselves onto the carpet. "You've checked her?"

"I assume Remus has," shrugged young Sirius. "She's his girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend!" he squawked. "Not that, oh fuck off, Sirius." He looked defeated, and then addressed Mad-Eye. Ginny supposed she should stop calling him that, before she did it out loud. "She's who she says she is, as far as I can tell. I've even checked records at the Ministry, Mrs Lovegood in the records department went through everything with me."

"Good. I've done my own, of course. Not entrusting that to anyone." He looked at Ginny. "I'm sure you understand."

Remus looked to Ginny as if to apologise. She nodded back. It was best not to look too confident. She'd expected it, of course, because she knew about this sort of thing. But Philomena Prewett wouldn't, and she couldn't react how Ginny Weasley would, could she?

Merlin, it was exhausting having to think about everything so much.

Mad-Eye stomped over to an armchair, turfing Peter out so he could sit down. Ginny had always assumed it was the wooden leg that made him walk so heavily.

"Alright," he said. "So you're who you say you are, girl? Good. I hear you want to join the Order of the Phoenix, too, and you'd better, after Lupin was so indiscreet as to tell you about us. You'll be of use if you've got Healing skills. Can you hold a wand without dropping it?"

"Yes?" Ginny wasn't sure why that question was important.

"Can you keep hold of that wand, and cast some offensive and defensive spells without shitting yourself?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand that if you fight with us, people will want to kill you?"

"Yes." She looked him right in the eye, calling up her Occlumency skills just in case he knew anything about Legilimency. "I want to help," she said. "If you'll have me."

"We'll take almost anyone at this stage, girl. Helps if you can hold your own in a fight, doesn't it, but if not we'll find a use for you. Death rate's a bit higher than I'd like, but these four have lasted almost a year now."

"How long have you been a member of the Order of the Phoenix?" she asked.

"Since it was created. Death Eaters have been about for longer than they've been called Death Eaters. How old are you? This lot are eighteen, nineteen. Death Eaters have been around, and killing, at least as long as these boys have been alive. Might have heard of them, you might. We formed about a decade ago, now, when Albus and a few others got fed up of waiting for the Ministry to act."

"We're still waiting," said James.

"And I'm still waiting for you lot to sort your defences out," said Mad-Eye. "Not a sneakoscope to be seen, is there? You can't be relying on spells to keep the intruders out, you have to be there to defend, and that means being warned!" He bashed his hand down on the arm of the chair. "And I'm still waiting for you to sort your hospitality out, too."

"It's Sirius' house," said James.

"You live here," young Sirius replied.

"I'll be going soon," said Mad-Eye. "Not staying in this indefensible heap a moment longer than I have to. Soon as I've told you lot what you're doing. There's been reports of another house like that one in Cumbria, and the one in Dorset, though if the reports are true this one is occupied. You'll go out there, and have a look, and you will not do anything else. I'm trusting you. Lupin, you're in charge. Black, listen to him."

"Why can't I go?" asked James.

"Because if I send you and Black, you'll be on some ill-fated rescue mission before the night is over, and I'll be ransoming you or burying you by tomorrow lunchtime. And, isn't Lily due back late tonight?"

"She is, but I could…"

"No, Potter. You're on rest after the last time and I will not be changing my mind. Pettigrew, I've got a job for you too. Come past my office in the morning, I haven't got the papers ready for you yet." He stood up to leave, eyeing Ginny as he did so. "Take the girl, Lupin, if you want. She ought to get to work. Nice meeting you, Miss Prewett."

"Isn't there some kind of ceremony? Some kind of oath or something I have to do?" Ginny asked. She'd always assumed that there was, the way her family had talked about the day they'd each joined the Order. She'd never been given much detail. Her mum wouldn't allow it, although Fred and George had declared it was difficult and painful. But then, they'd always said that about the sorting at Hogwarts.

"What do you think we are?" grumbled Mad-Eye. "Do you think we have the luxury of stuff like that? You'll say an oath in due course, but let's see if you're cut out for all of this before we waste our time on all of that. I wouldn't do it, but Albus insists." He shook his head. "You don't have to bother if you don't want to."

"I do," she said.

"Go on, then," he said, and stood up. "Pettigrew, no later than eleven. Black, Lupin, I want a report from you by then, too. Miss Prewett, enjoy." He disappeared back through the fireplace without waiting for a response from any of them.

"I still don't understand why I can't go," James said, moodily, with a look Ginny thought was almost identical to the one Harry would have on in the same situation. "I wouldn't do anything I shouldn't. And he didn't even have a parting shot for me."

"No, but your definition of that is different to Moody's, isn't it?" said Peter. "He's probably right. You'd rescue anyone, even if that wasn't what the mission required."

"That's a good thing!"

"I'm not saying it isn't," said Peter. "I'm just saying, you're both right."

"What do you mean?" asked Ginny.

"Moody isn't very good with victims," said Peter, blushing slightly. "He's the best Auror ever, I'd say, he always knows what's going on and he arrests Death Eaters like it was easy. But he focuses too much on that, I'd say, and he doesn't worry about the individuals so much."

"That's not fair," said young Sirius. "He tries."

"No, I think Peter's right," said Remus. "He doesn't want us to rescue the people tonight. It's probably for some big, fancy, operational reason. But he doesn't want us to, and they might be dead tomorrow."

"Why don't you argue with Moody, if you agree with what Peter was saying?" asked Ginny, much later, when they were approaching the shack they'd been sent to survey. Young Sirius was up ahead, crashing through undergrowth, with Ginny and Remus close behind. The path was narrow, lined with trees, and uneven.

"Use a Silencing Charm, Pads," Remus said, before answering Ginny's question. "Moody knows what he's talking about. He's been in the Order for a decade, but he's been fighting dark wizards for three or four times that. And he's survived. Some of them really want to kill him. I think he knows what he's talking about a little bit more than somebody like me."

"Like what?"

"Some nineteen-year-old fresh out of Hogwarts, with no real understanding of these things." Remus sighed, and Ginny heard the bit he didn't add.

"Hold on," said Sirius, stopping. "I don't think there's anyone there, but I'll go and check. James has leant me his cloak." He swished it up and over himself and presumably wandered off, not that Ginny could see him go.

"Nice cloak," said Ginny.

"James is from a very old family," Remus said. "He has some interesting heirlooms."

"Aren't you worried I might be a spy, or something?" she asked. Sirius had warned her that the Order's security was not as good as it would be in later years, but she hadn't expected this.

"If you are, all you've learnt is that dates with Remus are shit and that we like to go stomping around in the woods," said Sirius, who clearly had not wandered off.

"Fuck off, Sirius, get on with your job," said Remus, almost lazily. "I really am sorry about him." Ginny saw the grass move slightly under Sirius' invisible feet, and assumed that this time he really had left to do his work. "No, we assume you are a spy, at the moment. We watch you, closely, and we do a lot of research. You heard me talking to Moody, earlier. I do quite a bit of the research, Moody does some, and a few others, too. We know more about you than you know we do." He tapped his head. "After all, what do you really know of us?"

Quite a lot, Ginny thought, including where you'll all be in twenty years time. But that was not the point.

"I know that you are trying to make a difference," she said. "Which I suppose is what's important."

"It is," said Remus.

They lapsed into silence. Something was niggling at Ginny about this visit, and it wasn't her security concerns for the Order of the Phoenix. Cumbria.

"I thought you were going to tell me about your boyfriend," said Remus. He relaxed against a tree, but his eyes still cast around them, looking for trouble, and he held his wand out with a steady hand. "Only if you want to." His voice was attempting casual, too, and failing as badly as his body.

"That?" said Ginny. "Here?"

"Good a time as any. Pads will be ages. He's thorough."

"Do you have a signal for if he's in trouble."

"Yeah. And you won't miss it if he uses it."

"It's complicated," Ginny sighed, keeping an eye on the area behind Remus that it was harder for him to watch, her own wand out too.

"Isn't it always."

"I was seeing somebody, and we've been separated. I don't know if I'll see him again, but we never broke up." It was the truth, the bare bones of it, without mentioning that little device of Hermione's and the man there was now two versions of alive in 1979.

"Can't you go to him? Or owl him. Owls can get almost anywhere, these days, if you give them long enough."

"No."

"I'd normally assume he was dead by that, but you'd have said if he was. Wouldn't you?" Remus started slightly at the hoot of an owl. "Shit, that's probably insensitive."

"He's not dead. I don't think he is." Not being born yet wasn't the same as dead, even if they were about as contactable.

"I think," said Remus, as he walked a circle around her, prowling, "that you may win the 'most complicated relationship status' prize. And that includes the time we discovered that Peter was going out with three witches at once."

"Peter?" said Ginny, with barely disguised surprise. "I'd have assumed Sirius."

Remus' face fell slightly at that, as he turned away on the circle. "Yeah. I see that. He's the attractive one."

"I don't fancy Sirius, at all," said Ginny. She felt that needed clarifying. She never had. Now it would feel too much like stepping on Hermione's toes, too. Not that she knew how it was going with that. She'd left the house when Hermione was still glaring at the wall in the kitchen, and Sirius was glaring at the sky outside, and she had no idea if they'd get over themselves by the time she got back. She'd been longer than she'd planned to be, so she'd given them ample chance.

She'd try another Molly Weasley tactic when she got back if they hadn't, she decided. The old put them in a warded room and glare at them until they'd resolved their differences trick.

Although she might not want to be in that room, come to think of it.

Remus looked happier at her last statement, and stopped prowling. Ginny considered him. He wasn't unattractive, in fact, if she removed the image of Professor Lupin from her mind, he was quite handsome. This younger man had less scars, if enough already to last anyone a lifetime. He was noticeable, Ginny thought, and would have been without them. Her mother would have called it an honest face, and it was.

"Sirius is conventionally attractive," she decided. "I'm not really interested in that."

Remus laughed, a soft little laugh. "I'll tell him you said that."

"There's no need." Young Sirius pulled of the Invisibility Cloak with a flourish. "I'm already deeply offended. I was going to invite you to Lily and James' wedding. Won't bother, now."

"Whatever you do," Remus cautioned, ignoring Sirius, "don't mention the wedding."

Ginny decided not to ask why.

After much discussion, they approached the building as a trio. Ginny was still uneasy about this, and the feeling only grew as she trekked through the grass. And as the building came into view ahead of her, she understood why.

It was, down to the colour of it, identical to the one where Sirius had been captured in December.

"Okay, Phil?" asked young Sirius, and Ginny realised she had let out a little squeak.

"Fine," she whispered back. "Just, you know."

"Yeah," he replied. "Felt like it the first time, too."

There was a slight sensation of panic in her stomach as she wondered what she ought to say. She couldn't admit what she'd done before. But Remus had been there that day, the day they'd found Sirius. Had he been looking for that building? Did he think she might have seen it.

His eyes met hers.

"You've seen one of these before," he said.

"Yes."

"The day we met."

"Yes." She thought quickly. "But we didn't know it was anything sinister. We were just camping. We didn't look at it, not really."

"Well, we had best get on with looking at this one," said Remus, and he carried on walking. Young Sirius and Ginny fell into line beside him, and they approached with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. Just the usual, feelings as they walked into probable danger, then.

They were at the door.

"Check for wards," said young Sirius, and Ginny was glad she didn't have to say it.

The gnawing in her stomach grew as the two men searched for, and took down, the elaborate net of wards, protective charms, and defences over the building's entrance. Ginny stood back, quietly. Best not to show her hand, not yet. She stepped in only once, when Remus looked as though he might trigger something nasty. It was one the Carrows had used on things at Hogwarts. She'd have known it anywhere, and she had no desire to see it in action over again.

"Thanks," said Remus.

"Who's first?" asked young Sirius. "Trick question. It's me."

Ginny followed him, as Remus indicated, with his bulk bringing up the rear.

The house was much as the last one had been. Freshly decorated, a staircase leading upstairs, and a kitchen close to the entrance. They searched it quietly, methodically, sticking together as a group. Remus walked backwards, his wand outstretched. Young Sirius and Ginny inched forwards together, hand in hand, their wands out too. It was not the first time Ginny's left handedness had come in useful, with this sort of defensive formation.

"Last one," whispered Remus, outside the last room.

"Ready?" said young Sirius.

Ginny nodded.

The door to this room did not open when young Sirius twisted the handle, and did not open for _Alohomora_ either. The lump in Ginny's throat grew, and Remus' hand reached for hers.

"Try to blast it?" suggested Sirius.

"Might be someone behind it," said Remus.

"Melt it," said Ginny, and when nobody objected, cast a handy little charm she'd found in one of Luna's books in a bored moment. It reduced the door to a puddle, splashing slightly onto Sirius' boot.

He looked as though he was going to compliment her on the spellwork, until he saw what was in the room.

Four frightened-looking women stared back at them from the bunk beds, shrinking back against the wall as they looked out at the three in the doorway.

"It's okay," said Ginny. "We're not going to do anything."

"Sticks," said one of the women, dark haired, on a lower bunk. "They've got the sticks, too. Don't trust them."

"You can trust us, it's fine," said Remus, in his best calming voice, lowering his wand to his side. He did not put it away. As he stepped towards them, the lights in the room threw his scars into sharp relief, and one of the women let out a gasp. At the same time, Ginny heard the creak of a door downstairs, and a jolt ran through her.

"Quick," she muttered to the others, and when they stared at her, she took matters into her own hands.

"We're not the same as the people who brought you here," she said. "We're going to rescue you, but we're going to have to be quick." She looked at the window. Not this, not again. "Is everybody ready?"

The dark-haired women who had spoken looked fearful, but one of the others swung herself down from the bunk above. She had the fear in her eyes, too, and a half-healed cut along her arm. But she was moving towards them, and that would do Ginny.

"I don't trust you," she said. "But you can't be worse than those people. The ones who put us here."

"No," said Ginny. "We can't. Take Sirius' hand, please. Anyone else ready to go?" She turned around, wrenching open the window with her hands. "Jump," she said, to Sirius. "Use a charm to make sure it doesn't hurt when you land, Apparate to yours on landing. They'll have prevented us from Apparating from the building."

To her surprise, he immediately did as she was told, and they disappeared inches away from where they had landed on the soft, wet grass below.

When she turned back, two more women had come forwards. Only the original speaker remained on her bed, and there was the sound of speech from downstairs.

"Please," said Ginny. "We'll look after you."

"Where have you taken Mona?" Her dark eyes searched Ginny's face for the truth.

"She's gone somewhere safe. I can't tell you where, but I can take you. If you'll come." She paused. "If you stay, I don't know what the people who brought you here will do."

"They killed my husband," said the dark-haired woman. "They killed Michael, and they killed William, too."

"They're bastards," said Remus.

"Will they kill me?" she asked.

"Probably," said Ginny, because it was the truth.

There were footsteps on the stairs.

"Remus, take those two," said Ginny. "What's your name?"

"I'm not leaving without you."

"I'm Mary."

"Philomena." The footsteps were becoming louder, along with the hammering of Ginny's heart in her chest. "Now we know each other's names, will you please come with us?"

"Okay."

As soon as she had the woman's consent, Ginny reached forward for her hand, half-leading and half-pulling her from the bed towards the window. Remus was there too, throwing down spells that would protect them on landing. He twisted his body through the window, almost sticking, as Ginny gave up and shouted a Blasting Charm. Half of the wall fell, bouncing onto Remus' protective charms, and they did too.

"Grab on!" she shouted, throwing out her arms, and two sets of hands did so. She turned, seeing Remus do the same on the corner of her eye, and they were gone.

She landed in Lincolnshire, in a heap on the floor outside Sirius' house, with three women she didn't know and Remus Lupin. A couple of feet away, Sirius was pulling the fourth to her feet. And James Potter stood over all of them, Peter at his side, laughing.

"I distinctly remember Moody saying no rescue missions," he said. "I'm not going to be the one in the doghouse after all."

"Saving people thing," muttered Ginny. She thought she'd banged her head on landing.

"Good first mission, Philomena," said Remus, reaching through the mess of people to squeeze her hand. "I'd say you were exceptional. Almost like you'd practiced for that."

One of the women they'd rescued puked on Ginny's leg.


	34. Chapter 34: Lyra

**Chapter Thirty-Four: Lyra**

Regulus

 _February 1979, Hogsmeade_

Of course, Regulus had originally invited Adeline to accompany him to Hogsmeade this weekend. It was the weekend closest to Valentine's Day, and while Regulus himself held no stock in that custom, he understood that it was important to the vast majority of witches, and that the number included his wife to be.

But then, as was often the way, family matters had overtaken his own personal ones, and he was walking down to the village in order to meet a woman who claimed that she was his cousin. An illegitimate daughter of his Uncle Alphard, which was certainly possible. Regulus privately thought it was unlikely that two such relations would surface in the space of just a handful of months, but then, he was almost entirely certain that the other who had claimed to be a cousin was in fact his brother, Sirius.

If he had not been almost certain of that, he would not have dumped the man alive. The Dark Lord generally expected his captives to be dead at the end of their time in captivity. Sirius had always had an excess of pride, and would not admit to anyone that his brother had held him, that he had been caught at all if he could help it. So Regulus felt he was as safe as could be in his actions, and he had done the brotherly thing. The next time, Sirius ought to have learnt his lesson, and Regulus would not be offering clemency.

"Alright, Black?" said a couple of third-year Slytherins, who Regulus had occasionally offered assistance to in the past. They were cousins, distantly, if with a different surname, and one ought to help cousins.

"Good morning," he replied, unwilling to be drawn into conversation. He exchanged pleasantries with the boys, and enquires after their schoolwork, and then sent them on their way.

The girl, woman, was due to be waiting for him in the Three Broomsticks at eleven. Regulus checked his silver watch, engraved with the Black family crest. His father had given it to him on his seventeenth birthday, although the watch dated from the fourteenth century and had belonged to at least ten different Blacks before him. It was Regulus' most prized possession, after his wand.

It read half past ten, so he turned to the bookshop. It did not do to keep her waiting, but he did not want to look eager or as though he had nothing else to do. Professor Vector had recommended him some supplementary reading on Thursday, so he would purchase that, and perhaps a new set of quills.

By the time he arrived at the Three Broomsticks, it was two minutes past eleven. The pub was crowded, as it was expected to be on a Hogsmeade weekend, although not as full as it would be later. Regulus scanned the room. The usual crowds of the third and fourth years clutched bottles of Butterbeer, still excited by the freedom of the village. A seventh year Gryffindor argued with the barmaid about fire whisky; he was of age, she would not sell it while he wore uniform. Other students dotted the pub, in twos, threes or larger groups, some talking quietly, others earning themselves disapproving looks from the older patrons.

The woman he was meeting was sat in the corner, by the fire, a glass of mead in front of her and a book in her hand. She wore the green velvet cloak she had said she would wear, so he could identify her. On the whole, her appearance was unremarkable. She bore a minimal family resemblance, he supposed. She had the hair, and the cheekbones.

"Good morning," he said, approaching. She put down her book, noticing him before he had arrived by her table. "Regulus Black, son and heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."

"Lyra," she said, holding out a hand to meet his. "Lyra Black. I don't know if I ought to use that surname, but it is the one my mother gave me."

"That we will see," said Regulus, with a smile. She may well have the claim, or she may not, and it would come to light soon enough. "May I buy you a drink?"

"I am fine, thank you," she said, indicating the half-full glass before her.

He set off to the bar to purchase his own, and settled in the seat opposite when he had succeeded in that. He wondered how he should to approach this conversation, still, despite having rehearsed his approach in the days since their agreement to meet. Small talk, perhaps, about the recent cold snap or the fortunes of the Ministry.

"Forgive me for being to the point," he said. "But I have been wondering since I received your letter what has made you decide to approach the family, and me in particular?"

"Oh," she said, although she must have been expecting the question. "I have only recently discovered my heritage. And, well, you seemed to be the most approachable of the family. You're closest to my age, see."

"And what is that age, if you do not mind me asking?"

"Twenty three."

Well, she was closer to the age of Sirius than to himself, but that was certainly not an option she should have pursued. Perhaps even to Narcissa, too. No, Narcissa was twenty-nine, and Regulus was almost eighteen, which put them almost equidistant from the witch sat in front of him now. And Narcissa was a Black, but she had the name of Malfoy.

"And how did you discover me?"

"It's quite easy to find out about a family such as yours," she said, looking at him as she spoke, then down at her book. "You're in the society pages of the Prophet frequently, and Witch Weekly ran an article about your cousin Narcissa just last week. I simply read about you." She paused. "And my owl is quite clever at finding people."

Regulus was not aware he was particularly hard to find, stuck at Hogwarts as he was.

"Well, if you do turn out to be a cousin of mine, we shall be glad to receive you," he said, instead. "We do not take that on face value, of course." No, she would have to be of the blood. Grandfather Pollux would know how to check that, he was the scholar of those magics. And she would need to have the right approach. The Black family could not tolerate any more members who would rebel.

"I'd like to know more about your family," she said. "The society press focuses on Narcissa Malfoy, in the main, and her sister Bellatrix. Their weddings were spectacular. And of course your engagement. I know less of the older members of the family."

She did not mention Andromeda. That was a start. That had certainly been all over the press, if she had gone back far enough for Bella's wedding, then she would have gone back far enough for Andromeda's estrangement. And the birth of the child who was no better than a Mudblood.

"My father and mother do less in society these days. They attend, but my mother prefers more intimate social engagements. Of my grandfathers, one is rather wedded to his books these days, and the other prefers to discuss serious matters rather than to be seen in the dancing. My mother does enjoy philanthropic work, and Grandfather Pollux is very much a patron of musical events. There is little to say of them of excitement."

"And of you?"

"I study. I intend to marry my betrothed when the time is right, and I hope for a family. Perhaps a job at the Ministry, until I must take on a bigger role in the family."

"Politics?"

"Oh, perhaps one day. I am considering the Department of International Magical Cooperation." His hand itched to go to his left forearm as he spoke. If that was not politics, it was not anything.

"It sounds an interesting job."

"So I am told." He sipped his drink, surveying her. "Do you work?"

"I had a small job in a shop when I was abroad. My mother hoped I would marry, but I never found anyone worthy of my time where we were living. When she died, I thought I should visit Britain."

At present, the girl, Lyra, seemed as though she may be a worthy member of the family, Regulus thought. There was that slightly matter of the illegitimacy, he supposed. He had written off to the Ministry, after receiving her owl, and checked the details of her story. A Madame Lovegood in the records department had replied, unable to find a record of any marriage entered into by Alphard Black. There was a record of a daughter, confirmed of Arelle Macmillan and supposed of Alphard Black. He would have to attend the office to inspect the birth certificate. He supposed he could send someone, if it became necessary, or else go at Easter.

"And visit your relations?"

"I know nothing of my father's family, or if he is indeed my father," she said. "I'd like to."

"Let this be the first step," he said. Alphard certainly had been involved with enough witches, if his older relatives were to be believed. It was almost surprising there had been none approach before this.

He took his leave from Lyra a short while later, in order to collect Adeline from the castle for their afternoon together. He promised to send her an invite to Grimmauld Place over the Hogwarts Easter holiday, when he could introduce her to the remainder of his family and ask Grandfather Pollux to check her claim. If she was who she claimed to be, he could perhaps arrange for her to attend the Spring Ball. He was sure Narcissa would not mind the additional guest, and he would be able to find an escort from somewhere. Severus Snape might suit. He was a half-blood, and an illegitimate pureblood was a better match than many he could expect to make.

Regulus was pondering the various intricacies of introducing Lyra into wizarding society, walking up the hill path back to the castle, when a familiar voice popped up beside him.

"I've been shouting you for half a mile," said Francis. "Do I need to take you to the Healer to get your ears checked?"

"No," said Regulus. "I have been attending to business this morning, and was thinking on it. And, besides, who would you say you were to me?"

"Isn't that a question?" said Francis, kicking Regulus on the shin. "What's the business? Far as I'd heard, you were out with the betrothed."

"I am collecting Adeline now," said Regulus, "and for that matter, it is no concern of yours."

"I like sticking my nose in where it isn't wanted," said Francis, happily. "Good you're collecting the bird. Valentine's wouldn't be complete without a date, would it?"

"Who are you out with?" asked Regulus, more quickly than he had intended.

"Some girl from Ravenclaw. I think she is called Jenny, but she could be Hetty. I don't really know. Double date, you see. I think she hates me, because her friend has her tongue down my friend's throat and she's being ignored. I tried to put my tongue down her throat, but she didn't want that, either." Francis shrugged. "Girls. Damned if I know what to do about them."

"You shall need to learn," warned Regulus.

"So my mother keeps telling me. I have no plans to."

Regulus stopped. "Do you not intend to marry?"

"Why would I? I'm gay."

Regulus did not understand the point that Francis was making. Of course the man was gay, in that he had never shown a moment's interest in witches before. But that was no barrier to marriage, certainly.

"Your family will want you to."

"Yes, and they'll deal with it. I've got three brothers and five male cousins. They're hardly short of Macmillan heirs, even without me."

Macmillan. Francis might be useful to him.

"Do you know of Arelle Macmillan?" he asked.

If Francis was surprised by the change in subject, he didn't show it.

"Aunt Arelle?" he said. "Never met her. She's Father's sister, but she disappeared years before I was born. Used to write, or so he says, but then she stopped doing that, even. Heard she was married. Father and Uncle Anth talk about her when they're drinking and reminiscing."

"Did she have a child?"

"Dunno. I can ask Father, if you like. Why?"

Regulus was not sure how much to tell the other man, but after a few seconds of though he decided to be honest. It would come out soon enough, if Lyra passed Pollux's test and was introduced into society.

"A woman has come forward, claiming to be the daughter of Arelle Macmillan and Alphard Black. I am investigating her claim."

"What claim? Didn't you disown Alphard? Mother went on about that bit of gossip for weeks, coming straight after the thing with your brother."

Regulus pursed his lips. Why did everyone feel the requirement to bring up his brother so frequently?

"That would have been many years after she was born," said Regulus. "It is the status of the family member at the time of the child's birth that matters, not the time of their discovery."

"Hmm," said Francis. "All a bit weird, isn't it? I'll ask Father, then. See if I can get you copies of Arelle's letters. I read one once, it was mostly incoherent rambling, but so are most my Divination essays."

"Thank you," said Regulus, because any information was helpful. He checked the watch again, and pulled his black cloak closer. "I had best hurry to Adeline, now. I had promised to take her for lunch."

He would write to Grandfather Pollux this evening, he resolved, as he took his leave of Francis and began once again to walk up the hill to Hogwarts. He had rather kept this to himself, until he had given himself a chance to meet this Lyra, but it was now the time to involve the family. And he really ought to conjure some flowers for Adeline. And perhaps give Francis some advice on women, whether he wished for it or no.

 _Hermione_

 _March 1979, Diagon Alley, London_

"I just don't understand it," said Ginny, holding up a steel grey robe. "I mean, I do. It's as we thought, back in December. They've captured Muggles, terrified them and forced them to build somewhere without magic. They've found two without Muggles, now, including the one we did, and three with. But why?"

Hermione shook her head at the grey one, and held up a powder blue robe in response.

"I can think of so many reasons they'd want a building to keep people in," she said. "We went through all of those at the time." She shuddered. None of them were pleasant. "But I don't understand why they couldn't just use magic."

"That shade of blue will make you look pale," said Ginny. "Is it too much to go for the green again, I wonder?"

"I don't like green," said Hermione. In truth, it had been her favourite colour for most of her childhood. She had even hung onto it to begin with at Hogwarts, despite having been sorted into Gryffindor. It had been ruined for her around the time she had discovered just how many of those in Slytherin House thought she shouldn't even exist.

Including the man she was dressing up to impress. The entire family.

"Fine," said Ginny. "No green. No red. No pastel shades. I still don't see what was wrong with the grey." She felt a few robes, walking around the tiny shop a little more. "We haven't ruled out gold? Too Gryffindor?"

"Sirius says I suit gold," said Hermione.

"Sirius likely prefers you naked," said Luna, emerging from a corner with a pile of robes over her arm. "But that would not be appropriate for this occasion."

Hermione ignored Luna. She had been making increasingly less helpful comments over the past few days, weeks, really, and Hermione had run out of responses that the other girl might consider a reason to stop.

And, besides, Hermione did not yet know if it was true.

Things were going well, or as well as they could, but there was no denying that whatever the relationship was between her and Sirius, it was strange. They had continued almost as normal since the second time they had kissed one another, for a week, and then they'd kissed again, and the pattern had gone on like that for the majority of February. And at some point, it stopped being slightly strange and became nice, and comfortable, and enjoyable. She wasn't sure when.

They didn't talk about it, much. They'd come to some unspoken agreement that they wouldn't, and so they had a normal life, and occasionally, when they were alone, they kissed.

Naked had not been a part of it.

"I think navy blue," said Ginny, after a long silence. Hermione just bought them, because it was easier than overthinking it.

She dressed in them, back at the house, and stood in front of the mirror as Ginny did her hair. A couple of drops of that potion she'd used at the Yule Ball, and it twisted into a careful knot on the top of her head. Sirius, of all people, had given them advice on the proper hairstyles for her station.

He was also a font of information on how she should conduct herself. Hermione thought it made sense that he would know that, even if he had rarely gone along with the expectations as a child and teenager, but she hadn't realised he would notice hairstyles, and clothes, and those sorts of things.

"Arcturus is in charge, officially," Sirius told her, as Ginny fiddled with the front of her hair. "So etiquette dictates you defer to him, and as you're a woman, to my dear mother as the most senior female. But, in reality, it's Pollux who makes all the decisions. Arcturus doesn't much care about those things. He likes to read obscure potions texts and ignore people." Sirius was twiddling his hair, which was shoulder length and brushed for once. "Mother will want to know if you've been brought up right." He shuddered.

"Right?" asked Hermione.

"He means wrongly," Ginny supplied.

"Be rude to the house elf," said Sirius. "Shouldn't be too hard, it's Kreacher, and he's an odious twat."

Hermione wondered how much she should say about Kreacher having cost him his life. Nothing, she decided. That was not entirely Kreacher's fault.

"Never say anything positive about a Muggleborn, and if you accidentally do, claim you never knew they were Muggleborn and then make sure to insult them at least three times after that. Women don't really talk politics. You'll be expected to know about household charms, but you'll never have used them if you're raised right. Women mostly talk about gossip, in polite circles. Ask Mother to tell you who you ought to know and who to avoid. She won't expect you to know any of the English social scene, but she'll like that you've asked." He was twiddling with his hair so much that some had removed itself. "In short, just do the exact opposite of whatever the normal person would do, and you'll be fine."

He threw the hair to the floor, and Ginny gave him a disapproving tut.

They all gathered to see her off, having agreed that they would stay in the house. Sirius had been all for Apparating to London with her, but Luna had vetoed that and Ginny was going off to see Remus, anyway.

"Good luck," said Ginny, cheerily.

"You will be splendid," said Luna, handing over the gifts they'd chosen for her to take, flowers and a bottle of an elf-made wine.

"Don't let them piss you off too much," said Sirius, downcast.

She wanted to hug him, to kiss him, even, but they'd never done that in front of people before. So she just thanked them all for their help, promised she'd do a good job, and left.

It was strange, seeing a house you knew so well looking so different. She'd thought that, back when they'd first arrived at her grandparents old house in Saltburn and seen it looking as it would have when they died, rather than it had when she had visited it as her parents' holiday home. But looking at Grimmauld Place, she thought it again.

The house was not the happy house it had been when Harry had lived in it, the last time she had seen the building. It was the house they all went to when they wanted to gather without the more responsible adults at The Burrow to be watching them, the place where they went to mourn and later to celebrate on their own terms. The three of them at first, then Ginny, Neville, Luna, George, Angelina, Percy, the others that came with them and became part of their lives. This house was not so happy as that one, and the windows were lit less brightly.

It also was not the abandoned place they had visited that year on the run, or, from before that, the dark and dangerous Order Headquarters with Sirius skulking around. It was well maintained, with a freshly painted front door and flowers in pots on the steps. For after all, the Black family, while it was still a functioning, respectable family, had a reputation to look after.

It felt wrong. The house felt wrong, but so did being here at all. In the two weeks since she had last met with Regulus, fifteen people had been reported as dead at the hands of Death Eaters. None of them had happened as Sirius' memories, and Hermione and the others had been unable to save any of them. Twice they had turned up too late, once the day afterwards to a deserted house, and once as the Death Eaters Apparated away at the sight of Ministry forces, four dead bodies left in their wake. The others had been entirely unpredicted, families that to their knowledge had survived.

One was a family by the name of Patil, a Muggleborn couple of Indian descent. They had died.

Hermione had not managed to find evidence of any other wizarding Patil families.

And Regulus could have killed the Patils, or the Morgans, or old Mrs Winterton who had outlived her husband and all five of her children.

"Good evening, Lyra," said Regulus himself, as she was shown into the formal drawing room by Kreacher. He was sat in an armchair, hardwood and velvet, with a copy of the Daily Prophet folded over the arm. He was relaxed. She forced her face to be too, and for her hands to fall down by her side after she'd handed over her gifts to his mother.

"So you are my brother's child," Walburga said. "I had always expected he had a few, and I wondered if anyone would appear. Pollux, you'll check later."

The grey-haired wizard in the opposite armchair from his grandson nodded.

"We will, and what will be will be."

"Kreacher, offer Miss Black a drink," said Walburga Black, dismissively. She was admiring the flowers, and that was of course more important than treating her house elf with respect.

Kreacher gave Hermione a familiar glare. "Not a Black," he whispered, as he served her, and Hermione made a mental note to ask Sirius what he knew about house elves and their perception of familial belonging. She thought Kreacher was on to her, at any rate.

"Dinner will be served shortly," said Walburga, "but it is our family custom to take a drink together before we eat. Arcturus will be down shortly, I'm sure. Unfortunately my husband, Orion, is away on business, or he would have wished to meet you, too. Now, where was it you said you had lived?"

"We spent time in a variety of countries, as Mother said a broad education was of value. I attended school mainly in Japan, as my mother had a high opinion of the school there."

"You speak Japanese?" asked Walburga.

Hermione did not, but Sirius had assured her none of them did either. So she'd memorised some phrases from a book from a Muggle library, and hoped it would be enough. It seemed like it was. She'd wanted to have lived in France, because she did speak French, but Sirius had said they had too many relatives in France. And French speaking Africa was out, because apparently that would be frowned upon by the Blacks.

"Dinner is being served, Masters and Mistress," said Kreacher.

They all trailed through into the dining room. Hermione was glad to be away from the tapestry in the drawing room, with its imposing burn mark where Sirius should be, but came to the conclusion she wasn't any more at ease in the dining room. They'd never cleared it, while it was Order Headquarters, so she'd barely had more than a peep into the mahogany panelled, high-ceilinged room with the table that would seat twenty in comfort. They'd always eaten in the kitchen. Harry and Ron had bought a table football table for it in later years, and a bar, of all things, and made it into something Hermione had heard described in Muggle magazines as a man-cave.

She was led to a seat at Regulus' left. He and Walburga flanked Arcturus, at the head of the table, leaving Pollux opposite Hermione. The rest of the table stretched away to her left, entirely empty.

Food began to arrive, and the talk was of the Ministry, and Regulus, Arcturus and Pollux spoke as Hermione tried her best not to make a fool of herself with all of the cutlery.

"And of course," said Regulus. "There was that awful scandal with Nott, so it is unsurprising he was not successful in his bid for the Wizengamot. The Dark Lord was most displeased."

Hermione's heart jolted at that, the casual way that Regulus used the Dark Lord to mean Voldemort and spoke of his thoughts and feelings. But of course Regulus would know what Voldemort thought. Regulus would probably agree with him, still, at this stage.

Walburga, on the other hand, her eyes lit up at Regulus' statement.

"Oh, yes," she said, almost rubbing her hands with glee. "That was such a nasty business, wasn't it? I can believe it of him, but you'd have hoped his mother would have taught him the value of discretion." She sniffed. "But then she is a Burke, and don't we all know about Burkes."

"I'm afraid I am sadly unaware of which wizarding families are those to avoid," said Hermione, remembering Sirius' advice. "I would like to know more about society so as to be informed, and I would wish to hear your opinion in particular."

Walburga looked as though she may explode with excitement at that, and launched into an explanation of the best wizarding families. And, with more glee, the worst.

"The Weasley family is one to avoid," she said, firmly. "Blood traitors, the lot of them, and their eldest son, Arthur, is the worst of the lot. I thought he might turn out better than the rest, seeing as he married a Prewett, and they were always a respectable family. But she," said Walburga, with distaste, and Hermione could only assume she was referring to Molly, "she seems to have ruined both families. Pregnant at Hogwarts! The scandal!" Walburga seemed to be enjoying herself now.

"I suppose they are not ones to befriend," said Hermione, with a small, insincere smile and an otherwise neutral expression. She mostly wanted to throw something at Walburga.

And that was how the evening passed. Hermione had never sat through such words before as she heard that evening. Usually, she would argue back. She couldn't remember the last occasion she hadn't done or said something.

It was for the good of everyone. But you could justify an awful lot with that.

Finally the last course was served, a fruit compote of some kind, and Hermione could barely eat any of it.

"We would usually retire to my personal sitting room, after dinner," said Walburga to Hermione, while Arcturus and Regulus talked potion discoveries and Pollux watched the women closely. "But I believe we are required to test your claim. You seem to have had the correct upbringing, at any rate. I never rated your mother, she ran with all sorts of boys and she thought she might teach. Not a suitable occupation for a woman of her standing, not at all. But I am forced to admit she has raised you well."

There was a certain irony in exactly who had taught Hermione all the conversational skills she'd used tonight.

Hermione's heart beat faster as they made their way back across the hall to the drawing room, back to the hole in the tapestry that was Sirius. She had discussed with Sirius and the others what they would do if their ritual magic had failed (Hermione refused to call it blood magic; it sounded wrong) and she was discovered to be a fraud. Ginny thought they'd just banish her from the house, while Sirius was all for her punching his mother in the face.

Luna had assumed that behaviour like that would only lower Walburga's opinion of Muggleborns. Hermione was fed up of always having to be the better person.

"I am sorry, Miss Black, but if I am to continue calling you that then I will need a droplet of your blood." Hermione had not heard Pollux talk, before this.

"Give the girl a chance to get settled, Grandfather," said Regulus.

"Better to be done quickly," said Pollux, and he held out a silver dagger to Hermione. Instinctively, she stepped backwards, almost onto Regulus' foot. She could not be certain, but the style of it, it was almost certainly the one that had later belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.

"He won't until you're ready," said Regulus, his calm, steadying hands on her arm. "Grandfather, we must explain it first."

"That would be your job," said Pollux. "And I am happy for Miss Black to use the dagger herself, if she would prefer."

"I would," said Hermione. This was not going to be a problem. Some therapy suggested you reclaimed the thing that had hurt you for yourself.

"The test is simple," Regulus was explaining, as her eyes never left the tiny knife as Pollux Black passed it to her, handle first, courteously. "It is not painful, aside from the taking of the blood, and a numbing charm will take care of that. It is not dark magic, although it uses blood. It is simply looking for a family connection. I do not know what your mother taught you of that."

"Enough," said Hermione. "I understand what you are looking for, and I would be interested to know more of the magic."

"Aha," said Pollux. "That, my dear, is carefully guarded."

They all waited, after that, and Hermione raised the dagger to her own arm. As she did so, Regulus slipped a small bowl underneath it, and she, with as little shaking as she could manage, made the cut. She didn't bother with the numbing charm. She hadn't had one before, and Sirius wouldn't. She didn't know why that last bit mattered, but it did.

Pollux took the blood, in the little glass bowl. Hermione was breathing quickly, and whether through nerves over the result or the sight of that dagger, she didn't know. She trusted Luna to have done it correctly, but what if she had made a mistake, or Sirius had been disowned, or Pollux made a mistake? She had no reason to trust him.

The old man muttered, waving his wand slowly, gracefully over the top of the bowl, and the vapour that came up off it was silver and swirling.

"She is of the blood," he said, and Hermione tried not to sigh with relief.

"Oh, I knew she would be!" said Walburga, a smug smile on her face. Restrained congratulations were the order of the day, from the others. "Now," said Walburga. "Where are you living? We would not wish to see one of our own in substandard accommodation."

"I am adequately housed, but thank you for your kindness."

"And of course we should see about getting you onto the tree," she continued, waving a hand expansively out at the tapestry. "Illegitimate you may be, but that has to always been a barrier in the past. And it would be useful to have another to make alliances with. Being a Black, a full, proper Black, would enable you to marry better, my darling, which I am sure is only of benefit to you. Arcturus, I believe that is your domain."

"Very well. I formally recognise the lady, Miss Lyra.. do you have another name, Miss Black?"

Hermione panicked. At the tapestry, at the legitimising, at how fast this was all going, and at the expectation she should pluck a middle name from somewhere. Jean was such a Muggle name. And a common one, at that. And she didn't really want to use a name of her own. She needed strength.

"Jo," she said. "My mother read a Muggle book with a character named that, when she was pregnant. The name spoke to her, she said, I believe she was emotional." She needed a reminder of why she was doing all of this.

"A Muggle name," said Arcturus. "I suppose it will do. I formally recognise the lady, Miss Lyra Jo Black, as a full and proper member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and thus she is accepted. Will that do, Pollux?" His face was impassive at best, judging them all at worst. Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel, pulled a book down from the bookshelf, and began to read.

The rest of them turned to the tapestry, and Hermione did with them. Along from Sirius' burn mark there was a second, nestled in between Bellatrix and Narcissa, and up from that there was another, and from that there was a line forming, and a picture, an approximation of Hermione's face. Underneath, thankfully, the words inscribed _Lyra Black, 1979-._ They had fooled the magic, almost.

"Nineteen seventy-nine," said Pollux, slowly. "I suppose that is not your birth date, my dear."

"I was born in nineteen fifty-five," said Hermione, because that was her pretend age.

"Same year as Narcissa," said Walburga, who hadn't appeared to notice the problem. "Oh, I ought to arrange you an introduction. Narcissa does so feel the lack of good women in society, these days. Her sister is not one for the feminine graces."

"Well," said Pollux, and Regulus too was inspecting the tapestry.

"It could be a quirk," said Regulus. "Given that Uncle Alphard is no longer considered a member of this family, and Lyra has been accepted after his disownment."

"It should not do that," said Pollux. "But then, what do we know of the practicality of these things? We have not had this scenario in living memory, and these things are what one makes of them. The ritual magic showed her to be true. The tapestry was enchanted by the original Cassiopeia, and she was not always an example to uphold."

"I think we trust it," said Regulus, with the tone in his voice of one who expects to be listened to. Pollux raised an eyebrow at the tone, but did not contradict.

"Welcome to the family," he said, offering his hand out to Hermione. She shook it, assuming that was what she was supposed to do. Sirius' etiquette lessons had been full of holes, she was realising now. And her palms were sweaty, and her face, too, although that should be hidden behind the layers of beauty spells Ginny had added, the ones that every pureblood woman knew and the one that elongated her nose to give her a slight bit of the Black look.

"I will owl Narcissa this evening," said Walburga, bouncing slightly on the heels of her feet. "She will be so pleased."

Regulus smiled at her, a warm smile of welcoming, even though he was a killer, and Arcturus ignored the entire thing.

He retired to his study not long after, and then Pollux followed him, and after some assurances of Regulus that it was entirely proper for two cousins to be alone together, Walburga left to write to not only Narcissa Malfoy, but several other women of pure birth and good breeding that she felt would be fine friends for the newest member of the House of Black.

Hermione encouraged writing to Narcissa. She didn't want to, but they had a plan, and she would stick to the plan no matter what, because it was what would get them the Horcruxes. Stay close to Regulus, was the plan, and make sure we get the Horcrux he finds, and save him if she could. Befriend the Malfoys, and get to the diary. Try for Bellatrix, too, or if not another Lestrange, and check the vault. They didn't know if that Horcrux would be there, or if it would show up days after they checked the vault.

Hermione's back-up plan was a Lestrange's hair and the same plan as last time, but she didn't want to break into Gringotts again.

"I am pleased that you are indeed a cousin," said Regulus, when they were alone in the drawing room. "Would you like a drink?"

"If it is not too much trouble," said Hermione, and she made sure to watch him pour, and keep her eye on the goblet, and then she feigned confusion and took the one he had intended for himself. He was a Death Eater.

"I suppose you know why your father is no longer considered a part of the family," said Regulus, taking a sip from the goblet that had been meant for Hermione. "Although I do not know what your mother has told you."

"My mother has told me little," said Hermione. "I know that they had a brief affair in the fifties, and that my mother had already left for the continent before she discovered her condition. She wrote to my father to inform him of my birth, but I do not know if she received a reply. He was a powerful wizard, by her account, but uninterested in using that power. He had an affinity for plants."

"He was an expert with plants, that is true enough," said Regulus. "Do you know of Sirius Black?"

Hermione's stomach tightened. She remembered what Sirius had said about Regulus, and suspecting that he knew at least enough Legilimency to know if somebody was lying to him.

"I know of him," she said. "I know that he was disowned from the family, too." It was like a test. She could do tests.

"He was disowned because he is a blood traitor. Because he believes that Mudbloods are as worthy of the wizarding world as those who have the right to be within it. Because he disobeyed our parents, and our grandfathers, and he would not take his rightful place." Regulus had a faraway look as he said those words, as if he was repeating something he had learned by rote. "Uncle Alphard chose to take his side."

"That is unfortunate," said Hermione.

"Indeed."

Hermione took a deep breath.

"I am glad that my remaining family holds better values than my father," she said, with the most bland face she could summon, and she thought of the plan as she said it.

She Apparated home not long afterwards, and Sirius was there to meet her, and somehow he was alone. He grabbed at her as she came in through the door, and she was standing with her cloak half off, pressed against the wall, kissing him back as though she had thought there was a chance she wouldn't come back from Grimmauld Place. Even in the worst case scenarios, they had never believed that.

Perhaps Sirius had. It was, after all, a house that had been a prison to him, and a place of abuse and pain.

"I said," he said, finally, coming away from her mouth, his body still pressed against hers, "that I would never inflict joining my family on anyone I actually loved. I'm sorry."

"It's what we had to do," she said, stroking down his back with one hand and entwining the other into his hair. "We need Regulus' Horcrux, and the Malfoy's one, and if there's the one with Bellatrix then we need that too."

"It doesn't mean that you should have had to have done this," he said. "I hate them. I hate them all. Even Regulus, and I love him."

"Regulus will be okay," said Hermione, softly, and she took Sirius by the hand and led Sirius upstairs. He might only have the faintest of scars on his body from that family these days, but the emotional ones were as fresh as ever.

She did not know what she intended to do when she got him upstairs, but she took him into her room and shut the door, and for good measure used a locking charm that Ginny and Luna did not know, because neither of them had any semblance of a sense of privacy.

Sirius was standing awkwardly in the centre of the room, still offering apologies about his family.

"Stop it," she said. "If you want to keep a woman, you need to accept that they'll want to do things for you. Well, for the entirety of the wizarding world." If would be easier if her life were about making one, or even two or three, people happy, rather than constantly being about the saving of an entire community.

Sirius' face broke into a grin. "I know exactly how to keep women, thank you very much."

"Oh, yes?" she asked.

"You start like this," he said, and reached around her back to remove her cloak the rest of the way, and then, slowly, her robes. His hands were soft on her back and her sides, skimming down her as if they belonged there. She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as he kissed her still running his hands up and down her sides, and finally she had it, which meant that his hands left her body to allow it to fall from the ground. She sighed at that, and so did he.

"This isn't just a sympathy shag," she said. She wanted him to know that.

"No," he said. "I'm proving I know how to keep a woman."

They did not say much after that. Hermione divested Sirius of his jeans, and they shared an awkward look, as if willing the other to go first. She broke the stalemate, as after all she had dragged him up here, and pulled him down onto the bed.

Afterwards, Sirius muttered something about fifteen years, and fell asleep.

Hermione lay awake for a few hours, thinking about how bizarre her life had become, even compared to what it had been with Harry and Ron. Her last thought before going to bed was that, when Sirius had said that thing about his family on New Years Eve, he had been talking about people he liked, not people he loved.

 **a/n: Hopefully the chapters with split perspectives are working for people. I'm finding that they're becoming necessary.**


	35. Chapter 35: Lycanthrope

**Chapter Thirty Five: Lycanthrope**

 _Remus_

 _March 1979, Ministry of Magic, London_

"I know what you are." The tall, fair-haired man got far too close to Remus as he spoke, leaning into Remus' desk so his hair dripped onto it and Remus could smell the onion on his breath. "And you'll pay for it."

"You don't know anything," said Remus, as mildly as he could manage. His quill paused on the parchment he was writing on, but he didn't lift the tip. This report was important. He'd managed a promotion, after only three months on reception, and nobody had fired him for excessive sickness. He needed to do this. "I don't know what you're talking about, either."

The other man had drawn his wand, and Remus thought he saw the hint of a dark tattoo on his pale forearm as he raised the wand into Remus' face. The man was a boss of Remus'. Someone who gave him work. He needed to remain calm; he needed to keep this job.

"Fucking half-breed," he spat, the flecks hitting Remus in the face. "Ought to be put down. The Dark Lord wants your sort, though, and if I bring him one I'll be rewarded. So don't worry, you're not dying today."

"Get off my desk," said Remus, quietly. He didn't think the man would do anything, not here, not in a little corner of the Ministry. While it was not a busy corner, somebody would require something of the Administrative Support Assistant for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes a few times an hour. If Remus had been off to apprehend someone at their place of work, he'd have researched their usual working practises first. So it was unlikely he would attack.

It was almost always more sensible to ambush somebody in or on their way to the toilets.

"No," said the man. "Why should I?"

"I've got work to do," said Remus. "Sorry." His heart rate was rising, he wanted nothing more than to hex the man into the wall.

"Oh, he's got a job," scoffed the man. "Do you think your lot deserve them? Do you think you'd keep it if I shouted out the word," and he leant into whisper it, "werewolf, here and now?"

No, was the honest answer, but Remus shrugged.

"You wouldn't." he said, and then raised his wand further. "A little bit of a lesson, I think."

Remus' wand was in his pocket, and he knew he wouldn't reach it in time, so instead he punched the man, hard, in the nose as he raised his wand, so when the spell shot out it went into the ceiling, bursting a hole into the whitewashed ceiling. The man growled (and who was the animal here, Remus wondered), and tried again, jabbing Remus with the wand as he cast a painful curse. This one unfortunately found it's mark, and Remus toppled backwards off the chair.

He scrambled backwards, away from the man who was launching himself at him, punching him once more in the face as he searched for his wand in his robes. He belatedly remembered that the man's name was Thorfinn Rowle, and that he worked in this department. Remus had authored a report for him, last week. And now he was on top of Remus, squashing him, forcing the air out of his chest and dripping blood from his nose.

" _Stupefy!"_ the grinning Rowle shouted again, and the spell hit Remus.

He came to with the Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes standing over him. The balding, overweight wizard was almost a foot shorter than Remus was, and so he was also dwarfed by Thorfinn Rowle. Rowle's face wore a smaller grin than before, and drips of blood had dried onto it, but he was still grinning.

"I would like your explanation of today's events," said the Head of Department, his eyes fixed on Remus.

"He attacked me," said Remus, instantly. "I don't know why." He knew exactly why.

"His version," said the Head of Department, primly, "is that you attacked him, and that you have not produced any of the reports he has asked you for over the past week. He also has some highly disturbing allegations about you. It is your choice whether I sack you now, or whether I suspend you pending an investigation into those allegations."

So Remus was given enough time to collect his favourite quill from the floor beside his former desk and his tattered cloak, and then he was escorted from the Ministry of Magic having been fired for fighting a colleague during work time. It was true, so there hadn't been much Remus could do about it. If anyone had looked at his Hogwarts record, they would have seen twenty-seven detentions for fighting, so it was not even surprising.

It was becoming less surprising to be sacked, but he had liked this job.

He was left by the security wizards in the street outside the entrances to the Ministry of Magic, the quill tucked in his robes pocket and his cloak over his arm.

"Don't bother applying again," said the wider of the two wizards, and they went back inside.

Remus supposed he would go home.

He took a long way home, Apparating to a nameless town and buying a cup of tea from the shabby Muggle cafe on the corner of the high street and the road with the church on. He sat and drank it listening to a woman argue with her two children, one in a red school jumper and the other young enough not to attend school. He wondered what he would say to Philomena when she asked how his job was going. She'd looked happy for him when he'd announced his promotion, and now, two weeks later, he would have to reveal he was fired.

Again. Although he'd glossed over the rest of the times he'd been fired, in the months since he had left Hogwarts.

Oh Merlin, how did he ever think an attractive, clever woman, and one who would stand up against Death Eaters the way she did, would ever want a man like him?

The cafe owner asked if he could get Remus another drink, which was the universal code for 'buy another drink, or leave'. And, having been sacked, Remus couldn't really afford another drink, so he left.

With that thought, he went home, because having to explain to everyone that he had been fired was better than spending all of his last pay packet and having to beg for food from his friends. It wasn't that they would make him beg, Sirius and James with their inherited wealth and Peter with his job that nobody ever sacked him from, but that he would feel like he was every time he checked if he could have a slice of bread. They'd always tell him he didn't have to ask, but he did, every time. He'd live on toast rather than ask for anything else.

"You're early," said James, spread over the floor surrounded by annotated maps, and notes he'd taken on the maps. "Things alright at the office?"

"Got sacked," said Remus.

"Shit," said James. "I'm sorry to hear it."

Remus was grateful that James didn't say 'we'll look after you', because that would make him feel like a charity case. James collected charity cases, Sirius who had no parents, Peter who needed help with schoolwork, and Remus, the half-breed with no future.

He'd have to tell Philomena tonight that there would be no more dates. It was the best way.

"And don't you dare think of trying to let that girl of yours down gently," said James. "You're onto a good one, there."

"You just have a thing about gingers," said Remus, because making a flippant comment like that was easier than having to take James' words seriously and think about them and consider his options. He was almost always sure he didn't have options.

"She's clearly auburn," said James. "Lily is ginger. And that's not my point, which you know, my slippery, furry friend. She won't have a problem with your furriness, is what I mean."

"If you've told her," growled Remus.

"I'd never betray your trust," said James, and Remus knew he was telling the truth. "None of us would. Marauder honour, you know us." Sirius had, Remus remembered, and that was likely how Thorfinn Rowle had known what he was. Snivellus had told him. Snape was a Death Eater now, he'd been seen enough times that it was certain. And Rowle was rumoured to be one, had been seen on one raid, and there was that hint of a tattoo.

"Besides," continued James, "you know when she was here the other night? After that meeting with Moody and Caradoc? While you were debating strategy with Moody and Pads, Caradoc mentioned something to me about the werewolves, and she went off on a rant about how they'd completely misunderstood by society and are as human as anybody else. So there."

Remus opened his mouth to argue.

"Remus," said James. "Don't be a twat."

The door opened, and Peter's voice rang through it. "Who are we calling a twat? Please say it's Sirius. He's been using my toothbrush again, I know he has."

"It's Remus," said James.

"Oh, that's disappointing," said Peter. "I like calling Sirius a twat. Maybe I'll do it anyway, later."

"I don't like calling Sirius a twat," said Sirius, appearing from upstairs. "Did I hear you say you'd been fired, Moony?"

Remus nodded.

"In that case," said Peter, "let's call the Ministry a twat instead. Twats, maybe. I'm happy to switch from calling Sirius a twat, even though that reduces my personal enjoyment, to shouting at a faceless organisation that so rudely sacked our Moons."

"We were never calling Sirius a twat," said Sirius, shaking his head at Peter. "We never do that."

"We do that all the time," said James. "Like for treading on my maps. Which you are doing, right now."

Remus thought the word twat was beginning to lose all meaning, but his friends were making him feel better, so that was a positive.

In the end, they got him truly, horrifically drunk, and he passed out in the garden wearing Peter's suede jacket.

This time, he awoke with a soft layer of dew over him, and a freeze in his bones. He was used to both of those, from the morning after a full moon. What he was not used to was the auburn-haired woman, sat next to him with her head down over a notebook. Philomena's parents were a Squib and a Muggle, so of course she would know about notebooks and pens. It was spiral-bound, and narrow-ruled, the same as his mother used to use for shopping lists and the like. Except that his mother's handwriting had remained within the lines, and Philomena's took up two or three.

"Morning," she said. "I heard you lost your job."

"A little bit," he said.

"How do you lose your job a little bit?"

"Punched a superior. Twice."

"Ah, yeah. That tends to result in a lost job." She looked as though she was remembering something. "I once knew somebody who was promoted for killing his boss. Maybe try that, next time?"

Remus picked himself up, blinking. "That doesn't sound plausible."

She put the notebook away, into a pocket that was too small for it to fit. "There were a lot of implausible things going on in that time of my life."

"When you were with the Muggles?" he asked.

"My family have a way of dragging themselves into problems," she said. "And I think that applies of the magical part of my family, too."

Remus felt like that, but about his friends.

"How did you know I'd been sacked?" he asked, as his brain cleared a little bit.

"Hangover potion," she said, handing him a vial, which wasn't the answer to his question. "And I always find out things. Someone told me. One of your friends."

Remus had checked her background carefully. He'd done it before Moody told him to, back when they had first met when he'd been investigating that Death Eater property in Cumbria. He'd told Moody about the encounter with the Muggleborn wizard and Philomena and the woman that worked in the Records department, and that one of them might prove to be useful. But before that, he'd looked into her, and then he'd done it properly, afterwards, when Moody had agreed that she would be useful.

It had felt fraudulent, especially as the last of the checks had only come back after he'd met Philomena Prewett twice, realised how pretty she was, and almost accidentally asked her out on a date to be sort of, but not quite, rejected. But Remus was good at this, the research (not the asking girls out, he was shit at that, and usually resorted to getting Sirius to do it for him, which was funny, because otherwise he was quite good at conflict). He was certain she was who she said she was, because everything added up.

But every so often, something didn't. Like how she didn't always answer a question simply, with a yes or no answer. She'd answer it with a side comment, instead, or something that seemed like an answer but wasn't quite. She would say strange things, sometimes, that implied she knew more than she did. But then, he'd met Pandora Lovegood, and Philomena made more sense than she did. Some people were just like that.

Or she'd taken Divination seriously, and Remus sort of hoped it wasn't that, because he didn't much like the idea of going on a date with somebody who liked Divination. Prophecies were a load of shit, and fortune telling was cheap tricks.

And she'd never satisfactorily explained why she was engaged but not engaged, to a man she could not contact but who she thought she might be able to at some unspecified point in the future. The engagement ring was sometimes there, on her right hand where it didn't belong, and sometimes it was not.

He'd asked Peter for advice, the only one who had really ever had a sensible relationship with women.

"It's wartime," Peter had said. "The boyfriend, fiance, whoever he may be, is probably in hiding, isn't he? There are so many wizards in hiding these days." Remus thought there was a lot of sense in that. "Else he's a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and off on some big mission," Peter had added. "Or a Death Eater. Let's hope it isn't that one, though."

Remus, also on the advice of Peter, didn't push the issue too much with Philomena. It didn't seem very sensitive.

Besides, he was keeping his big, furry secret from her, so she was entitled to a few of her own.

They went inside. It was unclear which of Remus' friends had contacted her, given their current states. It would not have been Sirius. The man was passed out, face down on the sofa, and Remus remembered seeing him in the same situation shortly before he went outside. An owl patronus sat next to him, its head tucked under its wing but it's eyes clearly watching. Moody's patronus. Sirius was in for it when he woke.

James wasn't anywhere to be seen downstairs, and Peter was sat at the kitchen table looking the worse for wear, half propped over a bowl of cornflakes. Opposite him was Dorcas Meadowes, the annoying, overly cheery woman that had somehow risen to become the third-in-command of the Order of the Phoenix. Remus didn't exactly dislike her, but she wasn't on his favourites list, either. He didn't know why she had to be at his table, even if she was somewhat of a key part of Peter's current investigation.

"Morning!" chirped Dorcas, and although the hangover potion was doing its work Remus still felt his headache worsen at the sound of her voice.

"Evening," said Remus, and Philomena laughed.

"Philomena Prewett," she said, holding out a hand to the dark-haired woman at the table. The hair had more grey in it than it had when Remus had first met her.

"Dorcas Meadowes," she responded. "Pleased to meet you. What is it with men, eh? I know we're all drinking, because of this confounded war, but fuck me, they manage to cope with the effects of the drinking terribly."

"I'd rather not," said Remus. He didn't think this was a proposition, but he didn't think he could be too careful.

"Officially, Dorcas is a Healer," said Peter, who at least remembered his courtesies in the depths of his hangover. "But she's also been doing some digging at St Mungo's for me. She's in charge of the Order, or we all think she is, anyway. Philomena is a new recruit, and has something going on with Remus. Nobody's sure what. She's been helping with the basic stuff for now, but we're hoping to get her into the field hospital with you, Dorcas."

Remus was certain he heard Peter mutter something as he walked past on his way to put the kettle on the stove. "We'd know what if Moony pulled his head out his underweight arse," was what he thought he had heard.

"Oh, excellent," bounced Dorcas, going over to hug Philomena. "I've been hearing about you from Moody. He says you're competent, which is glowing praise from that old bastard."

"We think Dorcas is in love with Moody," Peter supplied.

"He has a certain charm," said Dorcas, winking at Peter. Despite being ten years Remus' senior, that still left her several decades short of Moody's age, even at the lower end of the range they could guess in. He'd never told anybody his real date of birth, as far as Remus knew.

"It's like fucking Kings Cross in here," said James, yawning as he walked through the kitchen door. "And Moody's patronus has done a shit on the rug. Did you know patronuses could shit, Moons?"

"They can't," said Remus, thinking that if his life got any more surreal, or irritating, before ten o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday, then he'd go and join a monastery.

"Patroni," said Dorcas. "It ought to be patroni."

It didn't.

"If anyone's could, it would be Moody's," said Philomena.

"How do you know?" Remus asked. That was the other thing he didn't entirely understand about her. She seemed to know things about people she'd only just met.

"Oh come on," she said. "He defies laws of nature, and he's the grumpiest bugger I've ever met."

"The girl is right," said James, sagely. "Oh, fucking hell, what are you doing here, Dorcas?" He checked his watch, the twin of Sirius' fancy Potter heirloom watch. Peter had a less fancy one. Nobody had given Remus Lupin a watch for his seventeenth birthday. "Shouldn't you and Pete be at work?"

"Working from home," said Peter.

"Out on a house call," said Dorcas.

"In my fucking kitchen, too," said Remus, who just wanted everybody out now. Not that he planned to say that.

"Sirius' kitchen," said James. "Although all of the actual useful kitchenware belongs to me."

"Why is an owl shitting on my head?" shouted Sirius, from the living room, as the patronus began to bark it's message over the top of him and Philomena, inexplicably, doubled over laughing, clutching the edge of the table to keep herself upright. Next to her, Dorcas was struggling to breathe through her own laughter. Remus accepted a mug of coffee from Peter, sipped it, and then slammed it down, having forgotten that he hated coffee.

They sat on the wall outside later, Philomena and Remus, twenty-four hours almost from the point where he had been sacked. They had gone outside to get away from all the people in the house, even if it had now almost emptied. Peter and Dorcas had gone back to work, now. James was visiting Lily and Sirius had disappeared to stalk out a business in Diagon Alley that was suspected to be harbouring a Death Eater in the flat above. So it was just him and Philomena, who didn't seem like she had anywhere else she was supposed to be.

"My friends are idiots," he said.

"So are mine," she said. "I quite like yours."

"James is an arrogant fucker," said Remus, "and he has no idea when he isn't wanted. He drinks too much, and he's obsessed with Lily to the point where it's nauseating. Sirius is also arrogant and drinks too much, but he doesn't actually like himself so he needs constant fucking reassurance. He's obsessed with every woman he meets, but he's terrified of rejection so he dumps them before they can dump him. He and James are clearly codependent, but neither will admit it. Peter is unhelpful, nosy, and messy. He's all nonchalant all day, and then he keeps you up all night talking about how he's terrified of death."

She was watching him with a look of humour on her face.

"They could all keep a job if they wanted to, but only Peter bothers, and he doesn't even try very hard at it. He's never even been in trouble at work. And I try, and I keep getting sacked. None of them ever replace the toilet roll." He paused. "I don't know what I'd do without them."

"Sounds like friends," she said. "I have the most irritating friends, though. One of them sounds a lot like your Sirius, except he's got some issue with his brother, too. One of them is an insufferable control freak, who has literally no idea how to think and the other is a font of ridiculous ideas that never, ever will work and yet somehow seem to. She's obsessed with divination, and the other two don't believe in it."

"Friends," said Remus. "Who'd have them?"

Sirius had an issue with his brother.

"What do you think they'd say about us?" she asked. "Personally, I think mine would say I'm a bit quick to anger, lazy, like Quidditch too much, and am both too flexible in my interpretation of the rules and far too interested to sticking to them, depending who you ask."

"Mopey," Remus decided. "No idea of what I'm actually worth to society. A tendency to catastrophism. Irrational. Tries too hard to be liked."

They were all things that his friends had said to him. It was fair enough, though, Remus wasn't offended. He'd said everything he'd said to Philomena about his friends to their faces, too. James freely admitted to all of his faults, plus a long list more, except for the codependency with Sirius.

"Sounds about right," said Philomena, but before Remus could ask why he was saying things like that again, Sirius' Patronus swooped in to disturb their calm.

"Come quickly," was all it said, in the tone of voice that meant he was having a real crisis, not one about a girl or his family.

"Do you want to?" asked Remus, but Philomena already had her wand out, and was holding his upper arm firmly.

"Apparate away," she said.

A shitstorm, that was the word to describe what they had landed in. Sirius was barely able to be seen across Diagon Alley. Four more members of the Order of the Phoenix battled the Death Eaters alongside him; James, Peter, Marlene and Dorcas. Remus dashed forwards to join the fight, and beside him, Philomena didn't hesitate to run with him.

He'd kiss her after this, he decided, if he survived. He always made himself a little promise for afterwards, if he survived.

"Thank fuck," James panted out, fighting two Death Eaters at once from his position behind a crate of potions supplies. "They're fucking - _Stupefy!_ \- everywhere, Remus."

James was right about that much. There might be seven members of the Order, now, but there were almost three times as many Death Eaters. It was as much as their side could do to prevent any major damage to civilians and to their own.

"Shit," said Dorcas, rolling in beside them. "Going to go cover Lily. Someone needs to watch Sirius." She popped up over the crate, cast several curses in quick succession, and rolled off behind an overturned barrel.

"I'll go," said Remus. He and James combined their spells to knock a Death Eater backwards and upwards, into a hanging sign above a robe shop Remus had never been into. Philomena was hexing another, his long blonde hair loose behind his mask. It was almost certain that it was Lucius Malfoy; nobody else had that sort of hair.

He made the dash across the Alley, dodging six curses and getting hit by two, thankfully minor, ones. He had seconds to inspect the damage before he was well into the fray of fighting. Sirius had worked his way up onto a ledge, and the Death Eaters seemed to be drawn to the target. He was raining down spells on them from above, and didn't seem like he was going to last much longer.

Remus went to climb up to join Sirius, when a hex collided with the side of his head and he fell to the floor, a tall, fair-haired man was standing over him.

"Like what I did yesterday?"

Remus used the most painful hex he could think of on Thorfinn Rowle's balls.

"I can play like that, too." A flick of Rowle's wand, and Remus' own balls felt as though they were on fire.

He didn't let it show. "Fuck off, Rowle," he said, raising his wand again. But Rowle was faster, and Remus' wand arced out of his hand.

"Okay. I'll make this quick. You stay part of this Order, I'm going to destroy you. You got a mum? A dad? Some girl? I saw the way you were looking at that ginger bitch, a moment ago. She your girl?"

"No," said Remus.

"Well," said Rowle. "I'm going to do my best to find, and kill, everybody that matters to you. Or, you join us. We've got uses for someone of your skills. A werewolf, that is." At Remus' flinch, he continued. "That the curse, or you just don't like the word? Werewolf. That's what you've got a problem with?"

"No."

Rowle leant in. "I wouldn't associate with shit like you. But we'll let you do things that Order lot never will. You'll get freedom, and, you never know, someone might not think you're shit there. You think that ginger will want anything to do with you when she finds out you're a werewolf? I'd join us now. Maybe I'll tell her, give her a chance to dump you before I kill her."

Remus scrambled around for his wand, and was saved from needing it by Sirius and his leap from the ledge, down onto Rowle's back. Sirius was tangled into the Death Eater's robes, and Remus pulled Rowle's wand from his hand and Stunned the man with his own wand.

"Nice one," said Sirius, once he'd extracted himself. "Dorcas would kill us if we killed him, right?"

"Yes," said Remus. "Roll him away." Truth be told, he was tempted, for the very first time in his life, to cast the Killing Curse. But that wouldn't help, it wouldn't make a difference for what he was, so Remus jumped back into the fray, leaving Sirius to disguise the body as they had been instructed by Moody. The Aurors could arrest him later, that way.

Remus would not kiss Philomena that night.

 _Ginny_

 _March 1979, Diagon Alley, London_

Ginny ducked down and surveyed the battle.

Lily and James were holding their own, Remus and Sirius too. Everyone else also seemed to be, since the reinforcements had arrived. Except for Peter.

He was fighting, yes, and he was doing a decent job. But Ginny had seen that sort of look on someone's face before. Hogwarts, sixth year. It was the one that someone had before they lost their resolve.

Dorcas was struggling a bit, but Ginny chose Peter.

" _Stupefy!"_ she called, and one of Peter's opponents dropped to the floor. The second one spun, and she was forced to use a Shield Charm in defence instead of the curse she had planned. Peter took him down for her.

"Philomena!"

"Are you alright, Peter?" she shouted, dashing next to him.

"There's so many of them!"

"Come on, there's less than there was. Can you help me with something?"

"What?" Peter looked wary.

"There's a load of shoppers squirrelled away into the shops, isn't there? Shouldn't someone help get them out?"

"But the Death Eaters have blocked Apparition, and most of the shops don't have Floo!"

"We'll find a way," said Ginny, who had the beginnings of an idea.

She felt guilty about leaving Remus to it, when she saw some Death Eater targeting him. Sirius had his back, though, and James and Lily had each others, and Peter was out on his own.

"Okay," said Peter.

They ducked into a doorway, and as soon as they were into the shop Ginny realised that her plan had absolutely no hope of working. Hermione's plans would have worked. Luna's would have. Hers were a disaster.

There were twenty people crowded into the owl emporium, a mixture of adults and children. Several of them shrunk further back in amongst the owl trees and cages as Ginny and Peter slammed the door behind them, but one, familiar looking, boy edged his way forwards.

"You're not a bad guy."

"No, little lad, we're not," said Ginny, hoping that Peter would have a plan.

"I know you," he said. "You helped me when my Grandma died."

And Ginny remember who he was. Stephen Bridlington, the boy that had been supposed to die and that Hermione had saved.

"I did, and now we're going to help you again. This is Peter. He's helping you too."

"I forgot your name." Stephen still had a Quidditch figure clutched in his hand, the same as he had that night.

"I'm Philomena."

Stephen's mother, Helena, stepped up behind him. "Once again, I will need to thank you afterwards, although I had remembered your name differently."

"I went through a phase of using my middle name," Ginny lied, her palms sweating slightly. This was not going how she had intended it to in the slightest.

"Okay," said Peter, quietly, and when nobody listened he tried again. "Okay. Everyone. Could I have your attention, please? I think I have a way out."

And he did. Peter Pettigrew rounded all of the shoppers up, away from the door, and he lead them through the back of the shop and out through a warren of alleys and side streets onto the Muggle London streets.

"I do remember you," said Helena. "You were Ginny, then. I heard Hermione use it." Her three children were gathered around her feet.

"What's she talking about?" asked Peter.

"She saved my children twice now," said Helena. "You'd think she was a part of something that was fighting Death Eaters."

"Really?" asked Peter. "When was this?"

"December," said Helena, with a long look at Ginny. "I'm going to take my children home, now, much as I would like to know more about all of this. I hope our paths don't cross again, Ginny or Philomena, because every time they do I seem to end up thanking you for the lives of my children."

"So do I," said Ginny.

"Well, good work," said Peter. "Another shop load of people?"

"Yeah," said Ginny.

The back of their second shop was quieter, three people hiding under the counter including the shopkeeper himself. No children. They were leading them out when a Hogwarts-age man in green robes came through the front door, screaming. His arm was on fire.

"You-Know-Who," he stuttered out, as Ginny went to his arm. She extinguished him with little effort, although fixing his sleeve was beyond her limited Transfiguration skill. "He's out there."

"We know a way out," said Peter. "Come on."

"You're helping me," said the man. "Why are you helping me? I could be one of them, for all you know."

"If you were one of them, you'd have tried to kill us by now," said Ginny. "Death Eaters can't go two minutes without a Killing Curse."

"Our only saving grace is that they're mostly terrible aims," said Peter. "Are you coming, or not?"

The man held out his unburnt arm. "Francis Macmillan," he said.

"Peter Pettigrew. Get a wiggle on."

By Ginny's estimate, they rescued almost a hundred people from their hiding places in shops and other businesses by the time the fight had concluded. One Order member was dead, someone Ginny had never had the privilege to meet. Sirius had almost lost an arm to some kind of slicing curse, propped up against the wall of a building, but Dorcas was crouched down beside him, fixing that. Besides him, a battered looking Remus charmed the wall back together.

"Shit!" shouted James, as Ginny and Peter walked back into the alley, dirt-covered but close to unharmed. "I thought they'd got you, Pete!" And James ran forwards and hugged his friend, while Peter recounted the story.

"Amazing," said Lily, from beside him. "Thinking of that."

"Philomena did," said Peter.

"It was Peter's plan," she replied.

They went back to the Marauders' house afterwards, for a drink and a debrief from Moody. It was short, and to the point, and they toasted their dead. Three Death Eaters had been captured, although none of them high-ranking. The injuries were mild, on the whole, even if Caradoc Dearborn would need a few nights in St Mungo's.

Peter sought Ginny out after they'd done the toasts. "Do you want to have a drink with me?" he asked, holding out two bottles.

Ginny's slightly baffled look at that question must have shown.

"I'm not trying to steal you from Remus," he said, flatly. "Marauder's don't do that, and I have a girlfriend. Marlene. She was there tonight. Nearly lost her arm, but she's fine."

"Is she in the Order, too?" asked Ginny, once again falling into the trap of asking questions she knew the answer to. Because she knew Marlene's fate.

"Yeah," said Peter, fetching two bottles of butter beer and flicking the caps off with his wand before handing one over to Ginny. "She joined a few months ago. We've been together since Hogwarts, me and her, but she didn't know about this until November. Her cousin was in the Order, too, Benji his name was, and he died. Was killed, really, when fighting Death Eaters. So of course she had questions about why exactly I knew Benji was dead, why I had been there, and Dorcas said I should tell her the truth. And I thought she might dump me, but she joined."

"Why would she have dumped you?"

"It's dangerous, isn't it? People in the Order don't tend to have relationships with those outside it, because those people become targets. Death Eaters want to break the Order. They want to kill everyone in it, or immobilise them, anyway, and if you kill people's relatives it stops them. So Marlene was a target."

"Remus said something like that."

"He was probably trying to put you off him, the git." Peter shook his head, almost in desperation. "One day he will realise that women might actually like him for who he is."

"What do you mean?"

"He'll tell you. I give it about three weeks, now." Peter stared at her, a more menacing stare than Ginny has thought the still slightly pudgy man could manage. "And if you're a bitch to him about it, me and the others will have something to say to you. Just walk away, yeah, if you don't like him."

"You're making me a bit nervous," said Ginny. Not because she was scared of Remus Lupin, werewolf, but because she hadn't anticipated this, from Peter of all people.

No, that was unfair. He was a man, just as much as Regulus was. Better, in some ways, and worse in others. And they'd agreed to try and save Regulus, and in turn Ginny thought it was only fair to give Peter some kind of fair hearing.

Which was after all why she was here. She had considered flatly refusing to do this work with him. But Moody has assigned her to work with the Marauders and a couple of other Order members on this case, and Peter was their intelligence gathering specialist. For Philomena Prewett, despite her supposed talent for reading people, to have refused, would have caused problems.

"We stick up for each other," said Peter. "And for the rest of the Order, y'know, but the Marauders come first."

"I understand," said Ginny, because she did. That was Harry and Ron and Hermione, and that was the sort of friendship she had always wanted.

"Good," said Peter. And then he looked down. "Thanks for tonight. I hate fighting. I really do. I'm alright at it, but I'm not like the others. They make it look easy. I feel like I'm half a spell away from death, and I'm only just quick enough."

"So do I."

"But you're good at it!"

"I feel as though every mistake I make is going to kill me," said Ginny, sitting down. "And then I get nervous, and I make more mistakes. Sometimes I fire out the first spell that comes to my mind because I can't think of one that might hurt. I don't know if I want to hurt these people or not. I do, but I don't want to be the kind of person that wants to hurt people. And whoever you're fighting might know more magic than you, they might be faster than you, they might have a mate who's behind you. It's fucking scary, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Peter drained the last of his drink. "James and Lily fought V… You-Know-Who tonight. I hexed a couple of Death Eaters with spells I learnt in fourth year."

"You saved people," said Ginny. "We did. Did you see how many people in there could have tried to fight? At least a few of those adults, the ones without children with them, they could have tried to fight. And you did, and I did, and they didn't. So at least we did something." It wasn't a very good explanation, was it, but it seemed to help Peter. His shoulders sagged a little less.

"Thanks," he said. "Go and talk to Remus, yeah? He'll think you hate him."

"Why?"

"Trust me on this, Phil."

So Ginny did. She traipsed across the garden, past James and Lily cuddling up on the grass, and past Sirius and Dorcas having a heated argument about something she didn't understand. Remus, like Peter had been, was sat alone.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

She sat down next to him, on the wall they had been on when they had received the summons to go to Diagon Alley.

"You alright?"

"Some curses, but nothing that will cause permanent damage. James said you're fine."

"Not a scrape," said Ginny.

"He said you and Peter went off and saved the shoppers."

"We did."

"I understand if you don't want to go on any more dates with me."

"Remus, why would you say that?"

"Because… oh fuck it, Philomena, I'm a fucking werewolf, alright?" He stood up, his eyes dark with anger, his hands balled into fists.

"And?"

"And? You're saying and? And you're going to get fucking killed because it's dangerous! If it isn't me who does it, it'll be Rowle, and fucking hell, I actually like you and I don't want you dead!"

"Rowle?" Ginny was asking a lot of questions, really, about something that she had known for years. "Rowle's got nothing to do with this."

"He said he'd kill you."

"Why?"

"Because he thinks you're my girl. However he fucking put it."

"Do you think that?"

Remus looked at his feet. "Merlin's beard," he said. "I can fight Death Eaters, but I can't answer that question. I punched one yesterday, in the face, twice. Twice. And I sit here and stare at a girl I like as if I've never seen a girl before."

"Well," said Ginny. "Whatever the answer is, I've survived thus far, and I think I've got a reasonable chance of surviving a bit longer." She'd known about this attack, after all, and that gave her a head start. She'd known Remus would get targeted by Rowle, and that Sirius would save him. There had been no threats to a woman, that time. Just to Remus' parents, and they'd attacked them two days later. Lyall Lupin had seen them off, but Hope had later died.

"Don't you care?" he asked, his hands still tense in their fists. "Don't you care what I am? Don't you care what danger I could be putting you in?"

"Not really." He sounded an awful lot like another hero, a certain dark-haired boy who had not yet been born, and had not yet won his famous scar.

"Oh."

And, completely on a whim, and because Ginny Weasley did not shy away from getting the man she wanted, she kissed him.

He made a surprised little 'oof' sound.

Afterwards, much later, she allowed herself to think about Harry. To feel guilty. To wonder if, if she made it back at all, he would want her. If she would want to travel back. If she would survive, however confident about that she had acted to Remus.


	36. Chapter 36: Horcrux One

**a/n: This is either the halfway point, or slightly over the halfway point, depending on my exact chapter count and if it deviates from my plan. Woop woop! (Yes, this is turning into a longer story than I had planned. Hope you don't mind.)**

 **Chapter Thirty-Six: Horcrux One**

 _Sirius_

 _March 1979, Saltburn_

Sirius was bored.

Everyone else had a purpose.

Ginny was off with the Order, with his fucking friends, doing brave saving people stuff.

Hermione was off with his fucking family, being all chummy. Shopping today, he believed, with his mother.

He didn't know which of those was worse.

Okay, he did. It was worse that Hermione was with his family, because she might suddenly realise that he was actually a horrible little shit who'd never make anything of himself. So far, he'd lived up to their expectations nicely, but he didn't want Hermione to know that.

And Luna was off being Luna, except she wasn't, she was pretending to be her mother and messing with files all day. Useful messing with files, admittedly, so it was something helpful.

Well, he wasn't jealous of Luna. He'd rather die than pretend to be his mother.

He downed the apple juice in the chipped mug he was holding like it was whisky, throwing himself back onto his bed.

Seconds later, he got up to look for food.

He massacred some broccoli and potatoes in a pan, added some tomato sauce, ate three mouthfuls, then threw it away as inedible.

He watched half an episode of some programme about idiotic old men, then three minutes of the news.

The news was depressing.

He flicked to another channel, advertising utterly pointless noodles in a plastic jug, before turning into a programme about some people on a farm who couldn't seem to stop arguing with one another

He turned the TV off with his wand, something Hermione had told him firmly to stop doing and put the sofa cushions over his head, making a fort. He. wondered how long he could keep them there.

"Good evening," said Luna.

In all of that, he hadn't noticed she was in the house.

"I'm glad you're here," she continued, once it was clear he wasn't going to bother to answer. "I've got something I need your help with."

"Nobody else has."

"In case you have not noticed, Sirius, I am not anybody else."

"I had noticed that."

"Come on, then," she said.

"I want to know where we're going first." Sirius thought that was a reasonable expectation.

"To find a Horcrux."

Sirius did a double-take. He had been bored a minute ago, but in some ways, this felt like a little too much excitement.

"Ginny is doing her job," said Luna, "making sure that we get information to save people in the Order, and trying to stop Peter betraying you, and stopping you from suspecting Remus." She probably had no idea how that statement hurt, because she was Luna, and she would never have said anything to hurt on purpose. But it stabbed his heart a little, anyway. "All good things."

"Yes," said Sirius.

Luna continued. "Hermione is visiting with your family, again. Narcissa is sadly not going to be there, but she's making useful alliances to help us save Regulus and to extract those three Horcruxes hidden with Death Eaters. They are enacting the plan. And what are you doing, Sirius Black?"

"Keeping out of trouble. Not going anywhere with lots of wizards, unless I use Polyjuice. Not causing any problems or needing rescues."

The middle sentence had been Hermione's words, the rest of it was his own.

"And this is just a tiny little trip to an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere, which will be completely straightforward."

Sirius was not sure that was true. As much as anything else, his experience of 'oh, it will be complete straightforward,' was plans that his friends had come up with at school. Marauder plans had a 33% chance of ending in detention, Remus had done the sums. It had been 75% in fourth year.

And Hermione would think it was reckless, and things were going well there. He had not yet done anything stupid. They had kissed, and they had slept together, twice, and they had held hands a little bit in the kitchen, and it was impossibly tame but he didn't want to risk messing it up. He told himself that was because they would have to live together, work together, even if he did. And he had experience of living in the same house as an angry Hermione, and he didn't want to repeat it.

He didn't tell himself any of the other reasons, because they weren't true.

Although he did think he might have accidentally said that he loved her. But it was an accident, and the point he was making had been about his family, not her at all. Even if he wasn't going to say that, because that would just be tactless, and Hermione probably hadn't noticed, anyway. How would she have? They'd both been half asleep.

"If you're going to say that Hermione won't approve," said Luna, holding out his jacket, "then do we think that is any more of a consideration than if Ginny will approve?"

"Yes," said Sirius. But he really was quite bored, and Hermione was talking to some of the people who hated him most in the world. "We're going for a look," he said. "We're not going to do anything today."

"Indeed," said Luna.

They Apparated with tiny, quiet pops to a little village, a Muggle village, or the countryside surrounding it, anyway. Sirius eyed it cautiously.

"I thought you said it was the middle of nowhere?" he said.

"As close as," shrugged Luna. "If you're worried, send Hermione or Ginny a Patronus message."

Sirius stiffened. "I don't think that's necessary," he said. "They might be busy. With somebody where it's inconvenient. They almost certainly are, actually. And I don't think we need to. You said it was fine."

"Oh, you can't do a Patronus, of course. That is fine."

"I can."

He could, in theory. He had never managed it after Azkaban. It wasn't that he couldn't remember the happy memories he'd always used, but that they had lost their potency after the years of prison and Dementors he could only keep at bay through transformation. The years of feeling nothing at all except despair had sucked the colour from those memories, and he was left with the dregs, as if they had happened to somebody else and that he had been told the stories. By a good storyteller, yes, but they were not entirely his stories.

Not his happiness, any more. Some other Sirius Black.

Poetic, really, when you considered that there were currently two of him.

"It isn't embarrassing, Sirius," said Luna, picking her way off the field she had Apparated into and onto the road. "I know plenty of people who cannot."

"How did you know?"

"You just spoke too quickly. And you had too many answers."

"And how did you know where this Horcrux was?"

"I do work in the Records Department, you know. I just looked it up."

"Yeah," said Sirius, flippantly. "Under H for Horcrux or V for Voldemort? Or even S for Severed Souls?"

"E for Evil, of course," said Luna, with a smile that was entirely in her eyes.

It turned out that she had simply listened when Harry had talked of Horcruxes, years ago in the future. Harry had never given her the village name, but he had revealed that it was where Voldemort's grandfather lived, and that Voldemort had been named in part for that grandfather, and she knew that he was Tom Marvolo Riddle from what Ginny had told her. So she just looked up all the Marvolo's, and there had been one here, who had a daughter who died the year that Tom Riddle had been born. And everyone knew by now that his mother had died in childbirth, and so he had been raised in an orphanage.

"I very much enjoyed doing Muggle puzzle books as a child," she said. "It is just like those dot-to-dot puzzles. Once you have one thing, you connect it to the rest, and here is a picture of Little Hangleton."

Sirius had never heard of a dot-to-dot puzzle. He did sort of want to do one in front of his mother, to see what she said.

"So you just connected the dots?" he asked.

"Indeed," said Luna, who appeared to be moving on to other things, anyway.

They walked down towards the village in silence, and Luna brought them to a completely empty field.

"Well," she said. "It ought to be here."

"Charms," said Sirius. "Strong charms. There's a fucking impressive quantity of magic here." He took out his wand, and crouched to the floor. "Loads of curses, too. Whoever set all of this really, really doesn't want anybody to get in."

"And if they do," said Luna, "he wants them to be trapped here."

"So he can find them and torture them and kill them."

"There is no pressure," said Luna. "None at all."

Sirius laughed a nervous laugh, and Luna joined in.

"We said we weren't going to do anything," said Sirius, reminding her of their earlier agreement. But he could see a way to unpick a few lines of the curses, already.

"I never actually said that," said Luna. "You see, I do not ever promise anything that I am not certain I will do. I said 'indeed', which neither promises or refuses to promise."

Sirius was going to remember that trick. He flexed his wand hand. "I could remove about half of this, in a few hours," he said. "After that I'd need to look some things up."

"I suppose there is little to no risk removing what we can," said Luna. "As long as Tom Riddle does not come along right at this very moment. And that does seem as though the probability would be low. If he notices after we have left, we simply deny all knowledge. Do we have an alibi, Sirius?"

"Ginny will come up with one," said Sirius. "But I doubt Voldemort is going to suspect us. We don't even technically exist."

"Always suspect those you do not feel worthy of suspicion," said Luna. Sirius wondered if that was viable life advice, or a recipe for how to become exactly like Mad-Eye Moody. He suspected the latter.

Sirius took to work, while Luna sat on a large rock that certainly hadn't been there when they arrived and kept watch. She never dressed appropriately for anything involving stealth. Her robes were turquoise, for Merlin's sake. Bright teal, actually. But her spellwork was competent, so the eyes of passing Muggles slid straight away from the girl on the rock and the man on the ground, sweating slightly as he worked his way through the charms, wards and curses on the property.

There were eighty four he thought he could remove. None of them were of the 'certain death' type. That was a pain, in a lot of ways, because the ones that wanted to outright kill you were relatively easy to dismantle. It was also a pain if you accidentally triggered one. But less of one than being caught by Voldemort, all things considered.

Voldemort, as they had discussed, did not want you to die. If the curses he'd set were any indication, he wanted intruders to lose a couple of important body parts, be lightly tortured, and to be trapped. For their blood to be captured, and for their wand to be burnt to a crisp. And Sirius quite liked this wand.

He spent a good thirty minutes looking, running diagnostic charms, and feeling for the edges of the wards before he went in with any dismantling. He had been stung by things like this before; nasty spells that caused you to feel as though you were going mad if you attempted to bring down anything it was linked to, or curses that released magic creatures or dangerous mists. The kind of wizards who set this up were usually insane, sadistic, or both. His father had some very similar spells in his study and in the basement of Grimmauld Place.

"Luna," he said, before he prepared to bring down the first spells on the property. "If I fuck this up, run."

"Indeed," said Luna.

Sirius decided he did not like that trick when it was being used on him.

"Maybe we should tell Hermione."

"You can if you want to."

Luna was fucking infuriating and he was never going out with her alone again.

He took a deep breath and turned back to what Luna claimed was going to be a shack when he was done with it.

He started with the ones his father had used, the very first dark spells he'd managed to undo by himself. He had been eight years old, and curious as to what his father had been given by Abraxas Malfoy at a dinner party. So after he'd been put to bed by Kreacher, he'd sneaked downstairs and into his father's study. He'd been able to undo the locking charms and detection charms on the door by the time he was four years old. Sirius didn't know whether Orion knew that.

He'd gone into the room, and in the corner had been the shiny little box, and Sirius had wanted to know what was in it. But he'd put his hand out, and felt the hum of something dangerous, so he'd simply removed it. And then he'd touched the box, and passed out, because he had failed to remove the curse that knocked the thief out.

He had become more careful after that. His father's anger was impressive, and scarier than anything to an eight-year-old boy, but thirty-seven year old Sirius was far, far more afraid of Lord Voldemort than he was of Orion Black.

Orion Black, for all of his skills, was not particularly inventive with torture. By the looks of these curses, Voldemort was.

Four hours later, he had removed the promised half of the enchantments. It was still dangerous, but he'd removed the trapping ones, at least, and everything else that he knew how. He'd need to look the rest up.

"Done," he said, to Luna, who was threading buttercups together into a chain. Sirius thought it was a bit early in the year for buttercups, himself, but he'd failed his Herbology NEWT.

"I can see the outline," she said, carelessly stringing the buttercups around his neck as she jumped down from the rock. "Looks like there's two floors, and that it's being held up more by magic than anything else."

"Excellent," said Sirius. "I trust those buildings absolutely."

"The Burrow stays up," said Luna. "It is my favourite building."

"Hogwarts is mine," said Sirius. "I suspect that's held up by more magic than I want to think about, too."

"Well done today, Sirius," said Luna. "I suppose we ought to go home." She looked over to him, and pulled what could only be described as a smirk across his face. "Or, we could go to the Ministry and dig into some people's personal records?"

Sirius once again thought this was something Hermione might not approve of, and said so.

"Oh, this one is entirely with Hermione's approval. You know she's been going through all those Muggle newspapers for anything about those Muggles Ginny found? Well, it is somewhat linked with that."

It was entirely linked with that.

Sirius was not completely sure they were allowed to be in the Ministry of Magic at two o'clock in the morning, but there they were. Besides, copious previous experience showed that it was possible to get into fights in the Ministry, including the most secretive areas, and nobody would notice until Voldemort showed. So it was probably immaterial whether they were technically allowed here.

Most of the levels were deserted as they went up the staircases, climbing slowly to Level One. A handful of lights were on when they went past Level Four, and there was some kind of meeting happening at Auror Headquarters, but nobody paid any attention to Luna and Sirius other than a small woman with a bow in her hair and a glare on her face. Sirius glared back.

"Why aren't we using the lift?" he asked, as they set off up the last flight of stairs.

"I don't like the lift," said Luna. "It looks at me oddly. I do wonder if there is a poltergeist trapped in it, which would be sad."

Sirius had no response to that, did he?

Luna's office was in more of a state than Sirius' bedroom, but she seemed to know where she was going. She rifled through a series of files on her desk, before crossing to the other desk, and putting half of a large stack there into the bin.

"She has not got an adequate grasp of filing systems," said Luna. Sirius thought that was a bit rich, coming from her, but instead he sat down on the chair behind Luna's colleague's desk. He was not-so-pleasantly surprised when it shot backwards across the room and tipped him into a filing cabinet.

"That is not the way to speed up the search," Luna admonished him.

"What are we looking for?" Sirius asked, Vanishing the offending chair.

"Ginny has given me a list of the names of the Muggles in that house. We are cross checking them with wizarding records, so as to determine if they have wizarding heritage."

"Okay."

"Excellent," said Luna.

They worked in silence, and Luna was the one to find something first. "Mary Taylor. Not the least common name. This matches Ginny's description, however, and she has Squib parents."

"I've found another," said Sirius. "Funny. She's also got a Squib in the tree."

"That's not a very nice thing to say," said Luna.

Sirius twitched. She wasn't wrong.

"Sorry."

"I understand. You had many years of hearing all of this horrible stuff. It stands to reason that you sometimes do repeat it."

"I shouldn't, though, should I? I need to be better than that." He kicked at the chair, and it rolled backwards a little bit again. In frustration, he stood up, kicked the chair away into the wall, and threw himself and his stack of records onto the floor instead.

"Oh Sirius," said Luna. "You do have such terrible self-esteem."

"Fuck off," he said, but he didn't really mean it, and he thought Luna knew that too.

"I understand," she said. "Well, I do not. I have never lived what you have. But it's funny, isn't it? How family continues to define you, even though you try to become somebody else. I fear I am forever doomed to be the strange girl without a mother, who never quite worked out how to be with other people, because she was always alone."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"I thought you were pretty sorted, you know."

"Everyone thinks everyone else is, what was it, pretty sorted. They are not, usually. We are all about equally unsure of ourselves and our place in the world. Did you know, Muggles believe that most people are thirty before they work out why they really are?"

"I'm thirty-seven," said Sirius.

"You spent twelve years having the soul sucked out of you by demons," said Luna. "In terms of developmental years, you are twenty-five."

"Makes me feel slightly better about being a monumental fuck up." He didn't necessarily believe that, fucking hell, his body felt thirty-seven or sometimes even older, and he had suffered through the odd moment of personal growth in Azkaban. But it did make him feel better, and perhaps that was the point.

"That's quite alright, Sirius." Luna flicked through several more piles, then turned back to him. "I am pleased for you and Hermione."

"Thanks. I'm really worried I'm going to fuck it up."

"You most likely will. It would be improbable that a person would never cause an issue once or twice in a relationship."

Again, Sirius felt weirdly better for that. Which he shouldn't, given that Luna had basically just assured him that his fears were correct and that he would mortally offend Hermione at some point probably in the very near future. Like the whole having gone to hunt Horcruxes without consulting anyone and taking down half the defences of one of them and now having technically broken into the Ministry of Magic.

But Hermione had done irresponsible things in the hunt of Horcruxes, and had broken into the Ministry of Magic twice, so did not have a leg to stand on.

Admittedly, Sirius was on three times at present, but one of those had been entirely to see if he could in the summer after sixth year, and didn't count.

"Thanks, Luna," he said. He realised something he had never asked Luna. "Did you have someone, in the future? A boyfriend you left behind?"

Luna gave him a slightly sad smile. "I did not. I am less than interested in boys, shall we say? My interests lie elsewhere. And there was somebody, but, well, it is not to be."

"Oh." Sirius wasn't quite sure what to say. He spoke quickly, to avoid any accusation of not being okay with her fancying girls. "I'm sorry about that. Do you, was it anyone I know?"

"Oh yes," said Luna. "But I would rather not say who."

"You never know," said Sirius. "They might come around. If you get back there."

"I know, almost for certain, that they will not," she said, and she looked less sad than simply resigned, now. "I do feel sad, sometimes, but that is sometimes how life can be."

"Yeah. Life's a pile of Hippogriff shite." They worked in silence again.

Twenty minutes later, they had a collection of papers spread across the floor in front of them.

"There's a link," said Sirius. "It's the squibs. They're all Muggles, but all of them are registered as having magical heritage because they have a parent or grandparent who's a squib."

"But why?" asked Luna. "I would be lying if I said that I understood."

"It's a start," Sirius decided. "Come on. It's almost four o'clock. You actually have a job to go to in the morning."

"I'll sleep here," said Luna. "I do not want to go home, it will lose me an hour and a half of sleep."

"Good point," said Sirius. He stood up, stuffing his wand into his pocket. "See you, then."

He got to the doorway. "Er, Luna? Thanks. I dunno, you made me feel a bit better about all of this shit."

"What was it you said?" she asked. "Life is a pile of Hippogriff shite?"

"A massive one."

"Do you love her?"

"Hermione?"

"I am not talking of the Hippogriff. Why would I be?"

He shifted his weight to his other foot, and straightened his jacket.

"I dunno. How do you know when you love someone?"

"You do," she said, simply. "Not right away, not always. It's there, though. That feeling that you could not live another day without them. That you know who they are, even the bad parts, and you still choose them."

"Except sometimes you have to. Live without them, that is."

"Indeed, Sirius," said Luna. "Goodnight. Do tell her, when you know, won't you?"

Sirius nodded, and left.

He walked out through the still deserted Ministry, and took a Floo connection from the Atrium to the Leaky Cauldron on Diagon Alley. That wouldn't draw attention, not in the way going to somewhere identifiable. Not that their house had Floo, or anywhere else in their small town. The Magical Transportation folks would have disconnected the one in Jo's house, if she'd had one. They were efficient.

He Apparated from the Leaky to Saltburn, and sat on the pavement outside Jo's old house. The pavement was wet with the recent rain, and Sirius felt it seep up through his jeans. They were rebuilding the house now. Some wizards had been along first, and removed all the spell damage, and now some Muggle builders had been contracted by somebody to do the repair work. It had almost been completed, and a For Sale sign adorned the front of it, nailed next to the door.

He had no idea if he loved Hermione.

It was unlikely that she had noticed, but he thought he had said he did. He'd muttered something about not allowing people he loved to go anywhere near his family. It was something he stood by. But he'd never put a woman in the category of love, before. Just James and Remus and Peter.

He'd never been in love before.

"Sirius, you're a fucking idiot," said Ginny, as she landed next to him.

"I thought we agreed not to Apparate out here?" asked Sirius, deciding not to reveal that he had too.

"Ah, what would Hermione say?" replied Ginny. "Getting sloppy leads to getting caught. She's why Harry got away with so much shit, I'm telling you. But yes, we did. And some idiots dumped a sofa on the alley, flytipping Hermione says it's called, and I keep forgetting to Vanish it or something before I leave. Explode it would be more fun, but a possible breach of the Statute."

"You're talking very fast," said Sirius, because she was, and he didn't much care about some tipflyed sofa.

"Right," said Ginny, raising an eyebrow at him sat on the pavement.

"How did you know you loved Harry?" asked Sirius.

"If we're going to have a heart to heart, can we go inside?" she said. He picked himself up, and followed her in. "Also, I snogged Remus tonight. So I'd rather not talk about Harry."

Sirius stopped in his tracks, halfway across the road. Ginny sighed, and dragged him out of it, glaring at him all the way.

"Yeah," she said, unlocking the door. "I'm being a shit to both your best friend and your godson. Oh, and it was when I was about eleven." She flopped into the armchair, and pulled her hair from it's plait.

"Everyone seems to know immediately."

"Sirius, right, not meaning to be an idiot, but you don't exactly have a life that's been brimming with love. It's going to take you a while, yeah? Now stop angsting and tell me that I'm not being an arsehole to two different men. Fuck," she said. "I want to be with Remus and I also want to fix that fucking Time-Turner and go back to Harry."

"You're not," said Sirius, watching her tug the knots from her hair with fierceness. "You don't think Hermione is, and she was with Ron."

"I always assumed she'd dumped Ron," said Ginny. "I'd dump him, if he wasn't my brother. Considered sacking him as a brother a few times too, him and Percy both. I was supposed to be fucking marrying Harry, Sirius!" She was crying now, hot angry tears, and Sirius had never been good with crying.

"Ginny," he tried. This was not something that Ginny did, apart from that first night in the past when she had screamed at Hermione. "Ginny. It's going to be okay."

She threw her hair bobble to the floor. He tried again.

"Harry might not even know you're missing. We could be here for years. There's so much shit going on, that we perhaps should be taking our happiness where we can find it." He thought of Luna. Not that he'd say that to Ginny, because that would be betraying Luna's confidence.

"Do you think I should cut my hair?" she asked. "I feel like Philomena has a bob."

"Concentrate," he said. "Do the best you can by Remus, yeah? Don't be a twat. Don't cheat on either of them when you're in their timeline. Or I'll curse you. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

"Sort of," she said. "He told me he was a werewolf, and I said 'and?' I don't think that was the right thing."

"I cornered him in the bathroom and shouted that I knew what he was, then I punched him because he hadn't told us before and he'd been letting himself suffer alone."

"Shit."

"In my defence, I was twelve." Sirius wasn't proud of it, even if he spoke in his own defence.

"Harry killed a basilisk at twelve."

"Harry's a bastard of an overachiever, did anyone ever tell him that?"

Ginny laughed. "I don't think so. I never bothered to, anyway."

"Good. Probably doesn't need to hear it, with all he had going on."

"What did Remus do when you punched him?"

"Punched me back. Then hexed me, because he's always been faster at duelling than me."

"Boys. All idiots. Might become a lesbian, might solve a few things."

Sirius had a tear in his eye, too. The twelve year old Remus, the twelve year old Sirius, fuck, the twelve year old Harry, all of them had had enough shit in their lives to last them a lifetime before you factored in what they all had to come.

"You're going to need to tell him you're fine with it, you know," he said. "Several times. More than several. Probably around twenty, and even then I still don't know if he'll believe it."

"Do you reckon he ever believed that Tonks was okay with it?"

"I dunno. He never was when I was alive. He hated it. I thought he was going to get himself killed over Tonks, because he was so worried about what he might do to her if they ever even kissed, let alone anything more. And I'll admit to losing it a bit at one point, because I'd heard that spiel constantly from '75 to '81."

"But he'd kissed people before?" Ginny looked panicked. "I'm not his first kiss, am I?"

"No," said Sirius. "That would have been Flavia Longbottom, in fourth year. He had an accidental reputation as a womaniser by the time we left Hogwarts, did you know? He used to go on a few dates with a woman, and then panic, and dump them."

Ginny giggled, a nervous giggle. "I can imagine that."

Sirius looked at her, at her panic despite the slightly hysterical smile, and considered giving her a hug. "I think you're right," he said, deciding against it. "Philomena has a bob. And, what are those things called across the forehead?"

"Fringe," said Ginny, with a devilish grin. "Will you cut it for me?"

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Oh, by the way. Luna and I got halfway through stealing a Horcrux tonight. Will you duel on my side if Hermione tries to kill me?"

"Depends how hard she tries."

"You sure the Hat didn't put you in Slytherin?"

"Just cut my hair, dickhead."

 **a/n: Don** **'** **t worry, Ginny isn** **'** **t going to angst over everything nearly as much as Hermione and Sirius did.**

 **Thank you to Rachael for beta-ing and** **reassuring me that it does all make sense still. It's going to get less complicated from here onwards as people's storylines begin to merge more.**

 **And thanks to everyone who's reading, too, especially those who have left reviews. I do actually love getting them.**


	37. Chapter 37: The Waltz

**a/n: content warning for references to miscarriage/pregnancy loss, in the conversation between Hermione, Lucius and Regulus.**

 **Adeline paraphrases Princess Anna from Frozen, bonus points if you spot it.**

 **Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Waltz**

 _Hermione_

 _April 1979_

"Ah, Lyra, you're here. Regulus is just attending to something, he will be with us shortly."

Walburga Black bustled, that was the only term for it. She bustled Hermione into the drawing room, and deposited her onto a chair. She bustled Kreacher back out of the room with a long list of instructions, then turned back to those awaiting her attentions.

"Now. Lyra. I do not believe you have met Miss Fawley. She is to be my daughter, when she weds Regulus." Walburga beamed, but the smile did not stretch up her over-powdered face to her eyes. "That will be a happy day, the marriage of my only son."

Sirius, thought Hermione, but she held her composure.

"I do so love your robes, Miss Fawley" she said, instead. "The colour suits you perfectly."

Miss Fawley pulled her into a hug. Sirius had not warned her of that part of pureblood culture. If it was one. Walburga was likely not the hugging sort. She was all sharp angles and terrifying stares, even when she was aiming for kindly.

"Adeline," she said. "If we are to be cousins."

"And this," said Walburga, with the tone of leaving the best until last, "is my husband. Regulus' father, Orion Black."

The man showed a resemblance to Regulus, yes, but the person who stood in front of her was an older version of Sirius Black. Hermione wondered if he thought of Sirius when he looked in the mirror. She wondered if Sirius thought of his dad, when he looked in the mirror.

"Miss Fawley, Miss Black," said Orion. "I am pleased that you are both here this evening. I welcome you to our family, Miss Black."

Hermione also wondered if they always spoke to one another this formally. Regulus filed into the drawing room, followed by Pollux Black. Arcturus, it was revealed, was not to be attending the Spring Ball. He was working on a paper, Regulus informed her, as he did the rounds of the drawing room, speaking to each member of the family in turn. They all spoke to each other as if they were pleasant acquaintances. She could not imagine Sirius here.

"We are just awaiting Lyra's escort," said Walburga, to a house-elf that wasn't Kreacher. "Alert me when he arrives."

"I am to have an escort?" asked Hermione, doing her best to mirror the style that the others used. She sounded like something out of Pride and Prejudice; no, she sounded like someone straight out of acting school doing Pride and Prejudice without having read it.

"It would not be proper to attend without one," said Adeline. "We all do, or we are escorted by our parents, and if we are with our parents what we can do is limited. I would have to ask my father for permission for each dance, if I were with him."

"My mother did not handle this part of my education well," said Hermione. It was the truth, because Emma Granger had not known anything at all about wizarding pureblood society. And Sirius had utterly failed to retain anything, which was not exactly helpful at this point. It was slightly charming, but yes, unhelpful.

"Ah, and Mrs Black has not yet found the time, I suppose," said Adeline. "She is a very busy woman, what with the preparations for our marriage and her many responsibilities. Would you like me to explain?"

Hermione nodded.

"So you attend with your parents," said Adeline, "or a guardian, who would take the role of a parent, or with an escort. I suppose you are under the guardianship of Walburga and Orion. Or perhaps Grandfather Pollux, as your direct line ancestor."

"I live independently," said Hermione. Walburga Black had written to her three times, offering her a room at Grimmauld Place. Sirius had torn all three of them up; Hermione had written polite replies so as not to burn her bridges before she'd had a chance to even start to cross them.

"That is unusual," said Adeline.

"My circumstances are."

"Indeed. But nonetheless, you will have a guardian, as it is only right and proper an unmarried girl should. Your guardian speaks for you, advocates for you in marriage and such. That is why they help you decide who you ought to dance with. If you dance with the wrong man, or take his interests too far, you may find that interest reflected in ways you would not like. But you have an escort, so you have more freedoms. As Regulus and I are to be married, it is unseemly for me to dance with too many wizards. I am happy with that. Once I become married, I will have more freedom. But your escort will be more of a formality than mine, and he will be instructed to allow you to have a more free reign over the dancing."

Hermione thought this sounded an awful lot like a Jane Austen book

"Do you know who my escort shall be?" she asked. Adeline might enjoy Jane Austen, if she enjoyed this kind of rubbish. But she was marrying a Death Eater, so she doubted the woman would like Muggle literature.

Hermione's escort was almost certain to be a Death Eater.

"I believe Regulus has chosen a friend of his," said Adeline. "I am so excited to become friends with you, Lyra. You know nothing of any of this, and you're going to liven things up so much!"

Hermione's escort turned out to be Severus Snape.

That complicated things rather less. After her last trip to Grimmauld Place, Hermione had become concerned that they were going to be trying to marry her off as soon as possible. At the look on Walburga Black's face as Snape walked into the room, as haughty as ever, Hermione thought there was little chance the woman would be campaigning for her being married off to him. It would have been more dangerous had it been somebody Walburga had approved of, and Hermione assumed that if that had happened she would have been over talking to the man's parents before the end of the night.

Regulus looked rather pleased with himself, though, as he took Adeline's arm to accompany her into Malfoy Manor. Snape himself did not seem to care, and had little to say to Hermione. That suited her.

Lyra Black had no history at Malfoy Manor, the same as she had no history with that dagger of Bellatrix's before the ritual to determine her family bonds. So Hermione walked in behind Regulus and Adeline, on Professor Snape's arm, of all people, and offered a few polite compliments to Narcissa Malfoy.

"Oh, Auntie Walburga wrote to me about you!" said Narcissa, kissing Hermione's cheeks twice. "We must speak tonight!"

Why did they all talk like that? The breathy excitement, as if you were the most important thing to happen in their little lives? And at what point had Narcissa lost that?

The last time Hermione had seen Narcissa Malfoy was when she had accompanied Harry to thank her for her bravery that night in the Forbidden Forest. Hermione had been left with no idea of whether Narcissa appreciated the thanks, or whether she just wanted them out.

Perhaps it was when your child was threatened by a Dark Lord.

"I will get you a drink," said Severus, and he left her when they entered the ballroom.

"I didn't know that these sorts of balls happened," said Hermione, mostly to herself, as she had thought she was standing alone.

"Well, why have a ballroom if you aren't going to have any balls," said Adeline. "Is that Snape boy getting you a drink? He's one of Regulus' dearest friends, but I have never warmed to him, in truth. Nice to know he has the manners, at the very least. Now, ball etiquette. You must dance the first dance with your escort, you know, and tradition dictates another two. The last dance is for who you wish to see again, and you ought to take that one with Severus, as he has brought you. Even if you don't. I don't blame you if you don't. Rumour is," and Adeline leant in towards Hermione, "that his father was a Muggle. And that he bears the mark of the Dark Lord on his arm."

"Is that true?"

"Regulus says so. Many of the eligible men have that mark."

"Auntie Walburga warned me not to talk of the Dark Lord."

"No," said Adeline. "We are all warned that. It is not seemly for women to talk of politics. And, besides, if you are to be heard talking negatively of him, sometimes the consequences are unpleasant." Her voice was low, cautious, but steady.

Hermione shuddered at that. Adeline was watching her closely, or so Hermione thought, until her gaze switched abruptly to some of the others coming into the ballroom.

"But that is not for tonight. I must introduce you to my sisters!"

Hermione found herself being dragged across the ballroom, and introduced to more witches than she had thought it possible existed. Almost none of them she had interacted with in her past, their future. Death Eater families were represented; Amalia Nott, the formidable Madame Lestrange, a handful of Carrows, Rowles, and Parkinsons, amongst others. There were the ones who had not declared a side, including Adeline's family and the bundle of Greengrass daughters. And surnames Hermione had only seen in records or old newspapers.

"And this is Sorella Macmillan. She's an aunt of mine by marriage, and grandmother of Georgina, who you met before. Auntie, this is Lyra Black, daughter of Alphard Black, and recently welcomed into the family. And a granddaughter of yours, too, via Arelle."

"I hope they are treating you right," said Sorella. The wizened old witch did not raise herself from her chair to greet Hermione, rather looking at her over the tops of her glasses. "Funny family."

"Auntie!" said Adeline. "I am to marry Regulus Black you remember!"

"I might be old," said Sorella, "but I remember. My grandson speaks of him." Her eyes narrowed slightly at Hermione. "You don't look much like a Macmillan. Arelle was blonde. Tubby. You're dark haired, and such skinny ankles. We're a sturdy family."

"I suppose I take after my father," said Hermione. "Or that is what I've been told." That and the glamour on her nose, again.

Sorella tutted. "Odd looking family."

"Auntie!"

"You know what you're marrying into, Adeline, don't pretend to me that you don't. You want to hope for boys, the Black girls tend to insanity and odd faces. That one who ran off with a Muggleborn was the only one with sense." She gave Hermione another appraising look. "No, you don't look like a Black or a Macmillan, but I suppose they've checked that, so you are. Watch your family, missy."

"Excuse me," said Hermione. "I must visit the bathroom." They'd think she had a weak bladder, the amount of toilet trips she'd taken tonight.

She found a quiet corner, and pulled out the notebook she'd been using to keep a track of who was who. Sorella was on page forty-five, somewhere down the ranks of the who-was-who of the wizarding elites. And Hermione had no idea what to make of her.

She'd decided not to trust anybody here, not up until the point that she would need to intervene with Regulus. It was too dangerous. Not just the risk of being caught, which was considerable in a world where everybody seemed to track their bloodline back as far as it was pure, and know the names of everyone else's relatives as well as their own. But the danger of causing Regulus to do something different, and not being able to find him where he was supposed to be on the September night when he would attempt to steal a Horcrux.

Hermione heard footsteps approaching her hiding spot, and shoved the notebook back into her magically-extended gold bag as quickly as she could.

"The Dark Lord is less than impressed, I must say," came the voice of Lucius Malfoy. "Some of us performed well last night, and he has rewarded us. The majority did not, and he is displeased."

"I am sorry I could not have been there," came another, a voice Hermione did not recognise.

"Your work elsewhere was of importance," said Lucius. "That work is not usually given to one still in school, so you should be pleased."

"I am," said the other. "But I enjoy action."

"There will be plenty soon enough," said a third voice, which Hermione realised with a jolt was Regulus. "But I quite agree, Lucius. Last night was a debacle. The way Rowle was behaving with that beast, and he was only the start of it. I fear we have too many with personal vendettas, and few with the correct principles."

Hermione shrunk back further into the corner, between a cabinet and an ornate door with a gilded doorknob. They were talking about Remus, she was sure of it. Ginny had given them a short description of the attack, although she hadn't personally seen all of it, and it fitted.

"Indeed," said Lucius. "I trust that you are free of those petty vendettas, Selwyn?"

"Of course," said the wizard called Selwyn. "Is it true that the Dark Lord himself entered the fray last night?"

"Regrettably, yes," said Lucius. Their footsteps had stopped, and they seemed to come to a halt beside Hermione's cabinet. "He was most angry with how it was progressing, and even more so when he was cornered by three of that Order of the Phoenix. I can assure you that the three individuals cards are marked, for daring to assault the person of our Lord."

"Anyone I would know?" asked Selwyn.

"Lily Evans, James Potter, and Dorcas Meadowes. Two Mudbloods, and a blood traitor."

Hermione knocked into the door. The conversation stopped.

Thinking as quickly as she could, Hermione opened the door, and a couple of seconds later, closed it again. She then sauntered out from behind the cabinet, as confidently as she could fake, and plastered on a smile when she came into view of Regulus.

"Oh, cousin, I am so pleased to find you!" she said, light and airy and hopefully undetectably fake. "I am looking for the ladies, and I just cannot find it!"

"Ah, is this your newest cousin?" asked Lucius, smiling down at her. "Miss Lyra, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Lucius Malfoy. They are just down the corridor, you must have gone past them."

"Thank you, Mr Malfoy," said Hermione, unable to shake the vision of the last time she had seen Lucius Malfoy, the day he had been tried for war crimes by the Wizengamot. That Lucius was unshaven, in cheap prisoner's robes, eyes sunken with defeat. This one was a man in his prime, and she could see why Narcissa Malfoy had been enamoured with him.

"I hear congratulations are in order," said Regulus, when Hermione did not immediately go. "You are to have a baby?"

"Indeed," said Lucius. "It is still early days, but the Healers are hopeful. I am hopeful it will be a boy. He will arrive in October, all being well."

Draco Malfoy's birthday was in June.

She congratulated Lucius, on the upcoming birth of a child that she was almost certain Narcissa would go on to miscarry, and then took her leave.

It was thinking of all of that which meant she went in the wrong direction. Or, really, too far in the right direction. The loo was behind her, and she was in a more private area of the house. The doors looked much the same as they had in the area surrounding the entranceway and ballroom, but there was something more forbidding about them. Something of privacy.

And Hermione had an idea.

If she was a Malfoy, where would she keep her Horcrux?

The Lestranges kept the one they had been entrusted with at Gringotts, but that was a valuable. A golden cup would look slightly out of place, even in a manor like this one. And a book, that would look out of place in a bank vault. It would draw attention to it as unusual, valuable, something to be coveted. But a book, in a library? It would blend right in.

And Lucius Malfoy had not survived, and prospered, the way he had by being stupid.

The first door she opened was a bathroom, if not the one she was supposedly looking for. The second was a formal sitting area, all green velvet and black lace. The third, much more promising.

The Malfoy's library was the rival of any private library she'd seen, outstripping the one at Grimmauld Place by at least half the size again. The shelves sat floor to ceiling, neatly arranged into a warren of corridors between the books. There must have been several thousand tomes in there, ranging from recent purchases and frivolous titles to old, rare or illegal volumes.

And where did you start?

She had already been caught lurking once, and twice would be suspicious. There was only so much goodwill a bad sense of direction could buy you when caught out of bounds. If only she had Harry's invisibility cloak! No, she had to concentrate.

Malfoy would see a book given to him by Voldemort as a valued possession. It would be with the other expensive books.

Methodically, she searched through the shelves containing the oldest, most valuable of the collection in the centre of the room. They were all in pristine condition, as if owning them was the aim rather than reading them. Perhaps it was. Malfoy, Draco, had been clever at school, but he had not had an interest in reading. She had never seen him in the library, not really.

There were three books Hermione recognised as dealing with the subject of Horcruxes, and it was not with those. That would be a giveaway, Hermione thought, and it was not as if she was certain Lucius Malfoy knew what it was. It took a longer time than she was comfortable with to find the slim, innocuous diary, tucked in amongst a collection on history. She slipped it into her gold bag, just as the door opened behind her.

Quickly, she spun on her heel to face the opposite shelves, and pulled down a book from the shelf, flicking it open to a few pages in. Charms, she noticed, with relief. Nothing that would raise suspicion, not in itself.

"Ah, Severus," she said, in a forcefully airy voice, similar in tone to the way Adeline spoke, when she heard the footsteps approach her. Her escort's dark eyes were firmly on her as she looked up from her book, and he held a noble in each hand.

"I have a drink for you," he said.

"Thank you." She took it, some sort of alcoholic punch, and sipped it politely. Punch had never been her preferred drink.

"What are you doing in here?"

"I enjoy books," she said. "Regulus tells me you have an interest in magical theory, as I do."

"Yes," he said.

"What parts? I am somewhat of an amateur scholar, but I have never seen a library such as this. I admit to getting a little distracted on my return from the ladies."

"Potions. Old objects. Curses, and their counter-curses. Not subjects for a girl of your blood."

"Oh, but Grandfather Pollux reads of those all the time."

"He is such as he is, and you are such as you are."

"And whatever may that mean, Mr Snape?" The silly smile was hurting her face, and Snape was just as recalcitrant as she had ever known him to be.

"You are a pureblood lady. You are not expected to know these things. You are expected to marry and provide children."

"I am a illegitimate pureblood woman, brought up in foreign places where it is acceptable for a girl to study what she wishes. I do not intend to remain in Britain long if it does not allow me to. And I certainly do not intend to marry a man that would not allow it."

Snape laughed, a short, harsh laugh. "I would advise you to avoid Mr Rabastan Lestrange, then. His brother is married to your cousin, but that likely would not stop him pursuing you. I think he has offended almost all his other potential spouses."

"I thank you for the advice."

"I'll offer you more, if you'll allow it." He looked around the room, a sour expression on his face. "Your aunt will be trying to marry you off. Trust you own judgement. Move quickly, or you may find that the decent men are gone."

"And are you a decent man?" She wanted to know, not for a marriage prospect, but because she wanted to know what this young Snape thought of himself.

"I am what I am."

And there was that. Hermione replaced the book on the shelf.

"If you ask Narcissa nicely, she might let you borrow that," said Snape, indicating the shelves. Hermione wasn't sure she'd have been able to pick out the one she had been reading from a line-up. Her heart was still hammering in her chest.

"I would not want to trouble her," she said, lightly. "It is such work hosting a party, or so my auntie tells me. I wouldn't want to cause her issue."

Snape looked as though he had a response for that, before Regulus and Adeline came through the doors to the library.

"Oh, there you are, cousin. We noticed that you and Severus were missing, and Regulus thought we should come to save your honour. See, my dear? They are talking of books!"

"Severus is an engaging conversation partner."

"And merely a conversation partner," Regulus said to Hermione, but he had flashed a look of warning in the direction of his friend. "I have not yet seen you dance. And Mother is building quite the dancing list for you, cousin."

"Would you dance with me?" Snape asked, his eyes never leaving his feet.

"That would be lovely."

He took her by the hand and without further words, or any eye contact at all, led her down the corridor, back into the ballroom and onto the dance floor. They took a position to the edge of the other dancing couples, and he led her in a competent, if basic, dance. Beside them, Regulus and Adeline swirled around gracefully, and Bellatrix and her husband next to them. The room was full of couples, all of them appearing to have a far better time than Hermione and Snape.

"Are you a fan of dancing?" she asked, with her best impression of a gossipy, small talking, pureblood girl.

He grimaced. "I am not."

"Then why did you ask me to?

"Because I am your escort. I am supposed to, Miss Black. And it was clear what your cousin expected of me when I agreed to this."

"And what was that?"

"To dance with you. To not make an advance."

They danced in silence after that, Hermione's hand resting on Snape's shoulder. She'd laugh if the version of him she'd known could see this now. He'd never shown any kind of liking for her. Too Gryffindor, too Muggleborn, too much Harry Potter's friend. And now he had his hand on her waist. If he knew who she really was, if he had the information he'd had in the future, he'd probably wish to Scourgify himself.

She had never worked out what she thought of Snape. She supposed he was the same as Regulus, and Peter Pettigrew, and the others who had done both bad things and good. And yet they had seemed less grey, because both of those had made a clear final choice, and Snape's actions had been so murky to the end.

Hermione wondered what Sirius would have to say if she added him to the 'to be saved' list.

If they were going to do this, this saving people thing, they might as well do it completely.

At the end of the dance, Snape gladly handed her over to Regulus. He was an excellent dancer, but Hermione had a knot in the base of her stomach the entire time her supposed cousin swept her around the floor. He was in the depths of his bad choices, he was dangerous, just as much as Snape or anyone else here in this room.

Perhaps none of them truly deserved saving. But how could you tell? If she affected Regulus' choices too much, then he might not try to leave the Death Eaters. And she would be responsible.

And her uneasiness grew as Rodolphus Lestrange and then Lucius Malfoy took their turns at dancing with her, complimenting her on her choice of robes and her dancing ability. Her pulse was quicker than it had been when she had been almost discovered looking for the Horcrux, and her palms were so sweaty that it was a wonder no dancing partner had yet commented. She was palmed off onto Pollux Black, and sighed with relief. He, at least, she did not think wore the Dark Mark on his arm.

"Is the ball to your liking, granddaughter?"

"I have danced with so many people my feet are sore despite my Cushioning Charm," Hermione replied.

Pollux was a mediocre dancer, but he was a good conversationalist, and between him and Adeline and Sirius' information she knew everyone at the party in great detail by the end of their dance. Of course, Pollux's commentary had been with an undertone of who she should consider as a marriage prospect.

"Regulus is fond of the Snape boy," he said, "but he is not to be considered for you. A gifted wizard, yes, intelligent, but the rumour is his father is a Muggle." That was also what Adeline had said, except she had found the Mark on his arm to be also worthy of note, and Pollux didn't.

And she remembered why Pollux was almost as bad as the rest of them, and for the first time in that evening felt a stab of pity for Severus Snape. He would not thank her.

She took a break from dancing, burying her mounting panic in conversation with Adeline and Narcissa. Polite smalltalk, ended with an invitation to tea, which is what Hermione had hoped for from Narcissa before the Horcrux had become safely stowed in her bag. She held her hand over her bag in the same way Narcissa did to her stomach, subtly protective. And Hermione felt the pity for Narcissa Malfoy, too. The baby that would never be.

The room still unnerved her, and the company. The people that were so fucking superficial, the niceness, the lightness, the evil burned into the arms of most of them men and a handful of the women. The room where she had been almost killed, if not for Ron and Harry and Dobby. She had avoided Dobby. He had been circulating with drinks all evening, and she had taken drinks from the tray of every elf except for him.

She'd held it in when she saw him, and when she first walked into that room where she had been tortured, and seen the woman who had done the torturing, and made small talk with those who had stood by to watch. She had done it because she had a mission, a Horcrux to collect from these people, and she had done that, and now the world had gone a little bit fuzzy around the edges and her breath had got rather fast.

"Are you alright, Miss Black?" asked her dancing partner, she'd forgotten his name. "Some air, perhaps?" And he escorted her out of the ballroom and into the gardens, leading her towards a bench under an arch covered in ivy and roses.

"I'm sorry, I do not know what came over me," she said, which was a bald-faced lie.

"It's quite alright." He stood in front of her as she sat on the bench, his arms crossed and his blond hair standing upright on his head. His name came back to her, now; Francis. He was a cousin of hers, supposedly. If the Macmillan's ever wanted to prove who she was, she would be fucked.

"Dances make me want to faint sometimes too," he said.

"It is my first of this sort," she said. "I grew up abroad."

"Yeah, it was a bit of a shock to find out about you," he said. "You'll have to come to the house, sometime. Father's bedbound, and he'd like to meet his niece."

"That would be lovely," said Hermione. She would have to find a way out of that, or at least until September. She could disappear then, if she had to. Lyra Black would no longer need to exist. How had she let herself be talked into this?

And then she remembered that it had been her own idea, because it wouldn't have been safe for Sirius to have come.

"I'll owl you sometime, Miss Black."

"Lyra, we're cousins, after all." The fuzzy edge on her vision had disappeared, and she felt less as though it would all go horrifically wrong, so she smiled at Francis.

"Lyra. Interesting. Aunt Arelle used the Black naming system. She was an independent sort. Never thought she'd follow anyone's tradition."

Sirius had said it was the only tradition the Black family had that was worth following.

"Lyra," said Regulus. "Francis. Cousin, you must stop from wandering off alone with men!"

"Ah, come on, Regulus. She's as safe with me as she is with you. She's a cousin of mine, too." He winked at Regulus, of all things. "And the other reason."

"Yes," said Regulus, rather tersely. "The Macmillan family do not go in for cousin marriage."

"Cousin," said Bellatrix, coming outside. "Ah, and the newest cousin. Your mother is looking for you, little Regulus."

"I would rather you did not call me that, Bella," said Regulus.

The fuzziness had returned to Hermione's vision, and she tightened her grip on her bag.

"What's wrong with her?" Bellatrix asked.

"She came over all faint during our dance," explained Francis. "Must be that I'm a terrible partner."

"You were more than fine, cousin," said Hermione, collecting herself and calming her breathing. "It was rather warm in the ballroom, and it was my first experience of something so lovely." Everyone called themselves cousin, here, because they were all so inbred. She forced herself to focus on that, and not on Bellatrix and the woman she would become. Perhaps was already.

Because they would need to check for the cup, and somehow, they would need a Lestrange.

The path to the Malfoy Horcrux, even before her rashness tonight, that had seemed clear. Befriend Narcissa, saying that she needed a friend, get the Horcrux. The cup, if it had even been created, and how would they know, would be more difficult. Bellatrix. A Lestrange by marriage, and possibly crucial, but Hermione did not think she was the sort of woman who sat through ladies teas.

"Well, see that you do not cause a scene, cousin." And Bellatrix swept back inside.

They left not long after that point. Walburga had insisted that she slept at Grimmauld Place that night, arguing that it was unseemly for a young, unmarried woman to return home late at night alone. And Hermione didn't think it was worth arguing over one night, so she had accepted. They took the Floo home, had a few moments of polite conversation in the drawing room, and then dispersed to bed.

Hermione sat on the edge of the bed in the room she had been assigned, the one that Molly and Arthur had used during their time at Grimmauld Place. She locked the door with two separate locking spells behind her, then took the diary from the little gold bag.

It was surprisingly heavy in her hand, and had that same feeling of foreboding that the locket Horcrux had always given her. It was the diary that had first put the fear of Voldemort into her. She'd not seen him, that day in the Chamber of Secrets, not like Harry had, and the Voldemort of the year before, well, she had been too young to understand the implications of that, hadn't she? But the diary, she'd understood that. She'd spoken to Ginny afterwards, and Ginny had told her between sobs what had happened.

And for all Hermione's wished that she was free of Voldemort now, the man who had been lurking in the background of her teenage years like a menace, Ginny would never be free of the memory of him in her head. Possessing her. And Ginny would have to look at this diary again.

Hermione wanted to destroy it there and then, but she had nothing she could use, so she'd have to take it back to the others as it was. Tomorrow night they were off to save Remus' parents, so it would have to be after that.

Sirius would throw a fit. She'd told him not to do anything rash, and here she was with a Horcrux in her hand. But still, they had it, didn't they?

She shoved the Horcrux back into the bag. He'd not been far from her thoughts all evening, along with the feeling that she was betraying him by being so friendly with the family he hated. It was for the good of everyone, but you could justify all sorts of things with that, and it felt an awful lot like betrayal. He'd said he didn't mind, but he did.

The moon rose through the window, a sliver of a crescent moon. And underneath it, in the light of the streetlight, a shaggy black dog stood guard.

Hermione couldn't help but smile.


	38. Chapter 38: Radio Marauder

**a/n: Content warning again for a reference to miscarriage.**

 **This is a slightly odd one, because I needed to hurry up the passage of time a little. And our little gang deserved some time as the four of them.**

 **Chapter Thirty Eight: Radio Marauder**

 _Sirius_

 _April 1979, Merthyr Tydfil_

Sirius arrived first, halfway up a hill at a corner of two nondescript streets of concrete fronted houses. One of them was boarded up, rather ruining the look of the manicured front garden of the house that was attached to it. Semi-detached, that's what they were. Someone had taught him that word, possibly Remus.

Small towns were places he had only ever visited with the Order, until he'd moved to one with Hermione and the girls. They gave him an odd feeling, one that he couldn't quite place. Like he didn't belong there. He still felt like that in Saltburn, some days.

But, he thought, as he waited for the others, Remus' parents chose to live there, so it must be alright. Or perhaps they'd just liked the idea of being near other people when they no longer had a werewolf at home to look after. When nobody would be wondering what that noise was, and why the little boy was always so covered in marks and scars.

Muggles, after all, had a thing called Social Services.

Ginny Apparated in beside Sirius. Her hair was grey, her reading glasses haphazardly placed on her face. Hermione had a little hat pinned into her hair, he remembered. He hoped he could remember what they had all been Polyjuiced to look like. He'd wanted to do it as themselves, but Hermione had been cautious about blowing hers and Ginny's covers, so here they were, disguised as a bunch of elderly Welsh people.

Hermione popped into existence next to them, Luna shortly after.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Always," said Sirius in reply.

And then there was a bang of spellfire down the hill, ahead of them, and they all ran.

Remus' parents were under attack already. Lyall Lupin was on the front lawn, fighting three Death Eaters at once. He was going down, he was on his knees. Sirius made to join the fray.

"Oi!" shouted the Luna old-person, waving her walking stick. "What's going on here? I'm going to call the police, fireworks when we're all trying to get our rest!"

It distracted the Death Eaters, and, without communicating, the other three took one Death Eater down each. Simple, easy.

Ginny went over to Lyall and pulled him up from the floor.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Fine, fine," said Lyall, brushing her off politely. "I didn't know there were more of us in Merthyr."

"Oh, we are not from around here," said Luna, wafting up behind them. "Visitors."

"I suppose we were lucky," said Lyall. He stared at the stunned Death Eaters in his front garden. "Thank you. The Ministry will be here shortly, I suppose."

"No," said Hermione. "They didn't cast the Dark Mark. That's how they find the houses."

"How do you know that?" asked Lyall, suspicion clouding his features.

"Read it in the Quibbler," lied Hermione, at the same time as Ginny said "my daughter works at the Ministry." Sirius supposed 'someone told us in the future' didn't work, here.

"The Quibbler," Lyall muttered. "Excuse me, then. I must call the Ministry myself, and attend to my wife."

"Your wife," said Sirius. "Is she okay?"

"I told her to stay inside," said Lyall, tersely. "She is a Muggle. And I am well aware that isn't something to admit to in these times, but I refuse to hide who she is. It isn't right." He held himself up taller as he said that, and turned his body slightly towards the front door.

"Is there anyone else in the house?" asked Luna.

"No. My… there is just us two. My wife and I. There has only ever been the two of us." His shoulders sagged a little.

He might be willing to stand up as having married a Muggle, and brave enough not to hide that, but he'd willingly hide his son, Sirius thought. The scowl must have translated to his face, as Hermione and Ginny both shot him sympathetic looks.

"We can call the Ministry, if you would like to check on your wife," said Luna, sweetly. Before Lyall could answer, her swooping Patronus set off, and the dressing-gown clad figure of Remus' mother came through the door.

"Lyall! You're safe! Oh, Lyall!"

She stopped, short, three steps from the door.

"Are they, are they, those bodies, Lyall! Are they dead?"

"Unconcious," he said. "They will be taken into Ministry custody."

"Aurors," said Sirius, because there was a crack of Apparition.

"Peel away," said Ginny. "Peel away."

"Excuse me," he muttered, as the four of them receded into the background. "That is not what we agreed as the code-word."

"Is too."

"For God's sake, you two, this is a mission," said Hermione, under her breath.

"And he's your boyfriend," Luna added, helpfully.

The Aurors were clearly shit at their jobs, because they didn't notice the four elderly Welsh people bickering and then disappearing.

They Apparated home, and Sirius led the way in to their back garden from the alleyway behind the houses.

"We should let Remus know," said Ginny. "Somehow."

"And with what authority?" asked Luna, taking a pear from the pocket of her robes. "We are passers-by. We know nothing, and Mr Lupin as good as said he did not have a son."

Luna removed several more pears from her pocket and offered them to Sirius. He chose the smallest one. Ginny took the largest, Hermione refused them.

"It is rather sad, isn't it?" mused Luna, as they went into the back door of the house. "Poor Professor Lupin."

"It's a pile of shit," said Ginny, angrily.

"It's what it is," said Sirius. "Not everyone's parents are great." He walked through into the living room, and the others followed.

"No," said Hermione, slowly. "I suppose not."

They stood in the centre of the living room for a while, three of them eating pears, mostly staring at the plans on the walls or their own feet.

"It's becoming less reliable," Hermione said. "Tonight worked, but that Diagon Alley attack… it wasn't quite right. Different."

"It was better, really" said Ginny. "Less Order members died." Her hair was beginning to turn back to it's usual colour, and the wrinkles on her face were smoothing out.

"Fewer." Sirius corrected her on an impulse.

"We've got to be careful," she said. "Last night, I realised that. We need Regulus to do what he does, and we discussed that. But last night, at the Malfoy's, I realised just how precarious that is. Narcissa Malfoy is pregnant. She's due in October."

"Draco's birthday is June," said Ginny. Her eyes widened. "Draco is born in June."

"Narcissa had several miscarriages before she had a successful pregnancy," said Sirius. He didn't see why this was so much of a revelation. "It's common knowledge." He counted back on his fingers. "June. It's April. She has plenty of time to miscarry and conceive again."

"That's slightly heartless, Sirius, but undeniably true." Ginny sat on the floor, legs crossed, and bit through the core of her pear. She grimaced.

"But still," said Hermione, pulling down a sheet of paper. "It's very precarious. The whole thing! And Regulus, he's the worst part, if he doesn't go to that cave exactly when we think he will we won't have a bloody clue where the locket Horcrux is!"

The word Horcrux reminded Sirius of what he hadn't said. Luna raised her eyebrows at him, then took out her wand to Banish her apple core out of the window.

He crossed the room, and gave Hermione a hug, sinking into her and causing Ginny to raise her eyebrows before she leant back against the floral sofa. She rested her chin on his shoulder, pointy but not exactly uncomfortable, and he allowed her to collapse slightly into his arms. He still did not understand how to deal with women who were crying.

"Called it," she said.

"Did not," said Sirius. "But, er, Hermione?" He released her, and sat down beside Ginny. "Luna and I may have started work on stealing a Horcrux."

Hermione slid to the floor opposite.

"Which one?"

Sirius swallowed. "The ring. At Little Hangleton. Luna and I went. We dismantled some of the protective spells and wards around it, but I could only do about half, and…"

"That one nearly killed Dumbledore!" she shouted, jumping up. "You, you and Luna, you, are you okay?"

"Fine," said Sirius. "Absolutely fine." It wasn't really what he had expected.

"What was the phrase you used, Ginny?" asked Luna. "Ah yes." She looked smug. "Called it."

Hermione leapt onto his lap, and kissed him, in full view of everyone.

When he surfaced, he had no idea what to think about that.

Ginny wolf-whistled, and Luna looked smug as she tucked a loose bit of hair behind her ear.

"I sort of have a confession, too," said Hermione, and before anyone could ask her for any actual details she went upstairs.

"What d'you reckon?" asked Ginny, twisting the stem of her pear in her fingers. "Engagement ring for Sirius?"

"Interesting new book?" suggested Sirius. Men didn't get engagement rings, and, besides, they were a Muggle custom. Although admittedly Hermione was Muggleborn.

"Something dangerous," said Luna, but didn't elaborate.

Hermione reentered the room, and thrust a thin black box at Sirius. He took it, and held it out for a closer look.

"You and mysterious boxes," said Ginny, shaking her head. "Open it, Sirius. Or don't. Might transport you back in time."

He weighed it in his hands. It was light, the box itself unassuming and plain. But there was something very much wrong about it. It reeked, of something horrible and dark.

He pulled at the box, and out fell a small, thin book. He flipped it over in his hands a couple of times, taking in the details. It was a diary, not a book.

Beside him, Ginny had gone white.

 _T. ,_ said the inscription. And a year, one before Sirius' time.

"Never thought I'd see that again," said Ginny. "Hi there, Tom." She gave it diary a cheery wave as Sirius turned it over in his hands, but her hand shook and her face had taken on a tinge of green. "Don't much fancy renewing our correspondence."

"This was what possessed you?" Sirius asked. The Horcrux. A fragment of Voldemort's soul. It looked so innocuous. Perhaps that was the point.

"The very same," said Ginny, taking it from him. "Eurgh. Smells of dark magic. Dunno how I didn't notice that before."

"You were eleven," said Luna.

"Yes, nobody would have expected you to," said Hermione. "Harry and Ron and I didn't notice Voldemort hanging off the back of a teacher's head at eleven. None of us did."

"I failed to notice I was sharing a room with a werewolf," said Sirius. He felt had, then. "Not that I'm saying Remus is dark. He is, technically, I mean, a dark creature." He tailed off, and played with his undone shoelace.

"Yeah," said Ginny. As if it had suddenly burned her, she threw the diary into the centre of the room. Luna sat down, cross legged, on the floor opposite Ginny, and Hermione joined them too, forming a circle around the diary.

"What do we do with it?" Sirius asked. He knew the theory, of course, of how to destroy a Horcrux. But the reality was rather something else entirely.

"I want to stab it," said Ginny, her voice steady and low. "I want to, I really fucking want to."

Luna prodded it with the tip of her wand. "Perhaps we ought to explode it."

"Never had you down for liking explosions," said Sirius. "Personally, I reckon we set it on fire."

Hermione looked around at them all. "Last time one was destroyed with fire, it killed Crabbe."

"Yeah, but he wasn't much of a loss," said Ginny. She hadn't taken her eye off the Horcrux since she'd first seen it. "Luna's still got the scars on her leg from him. Nasty bastard."

"Corinius Crabbe, or his boy?" asked Sirius.

"The younger," said Hermione.

"I didn't know you had noticed my scars," said Luna, rubbing her leg.

"Well," said Sirius, after a few moments of silence. "This means you can't shout at me and Luna for what we did with a Horcrux. We were restrained, and careful, and not at all rash." He stretched out his legs in front of him.

"No," said Hermione, who for a second had looked rather offended. "I can't." She looked at him. "But why did you do it?"

He wasn't quite sure what answer to give to that, otherwise than that he was bored and left out and alone, and that didn't seem very adult or very gracious. So he was pleased when Luna took it upon herself to answer, or was for a short while, anyway.

"We thought we ought to contribute," she said. "And I do feel as though Sirius has been somewhat left out of our recent planning. He looked sad."

He wondered if it was less childish if somebody else said it.

"Why did you do it?" he asked Hermione, in a completely obvious attempt to change the subject. She'd notice, of course she would notice.

"Opportunity," she said. "I was alone at Malfoy Manor, and where else would you keep a book except in a library?"

"Well, even under disguise, Hermione is still Hermione," said Ginny. "I know you lot all took turns to look after Horcruxes in the past, but can I not look after this one, please? Just, it's a bit much." Her face had lost some of it's green tinge, but not all of it.

They all nodded.

Some time later, Ginny broke the silence.

"One and a half," she said. "We're at one and a half."

And somehow it was that, more than anything else, that made Sirius feel as though he was doing something.

He and Luna took to their project over the next few weeks. They read everything they could about the wards and curses on the old Gaunt shack, and then they tested each other. A series of cardboard boxes borrowed, with no intention of returning, from the corner shop became proxies for the shack, and stones, which they had a ready supply of from the beach, for the ring. In turn, they attempted to ward the boxes with a set of spells unknown to the other, and then watched the other identify and pick them out.

Sirius liked this sort of work. It was intuitive, really. He knew how to feel for what might be there, to test the edges of it until he was certain what would happen next. And then he could prod at it, remove the obstacle, or work on it a little more, until he got the desired outcome.

It was the complete opposite to how things seemed to work with Hermione.

She had said that she was not angry with him for going looking for Horcruxes, and yet she had made him promise not to do that again. She'd looked touched that he had gone to Grimmauld Place, the night she had stayed there, but he'd had to promise not to do that again, as well.

Maybe, like Luna said, it was all about intent. He wanted the curses to go away without hurting him. He was more certain than ever, these days, that the last thing that he wanted was for Hermione to go away.

He asked Luna for advice.

"Think about it, Sirius," she said. "It is quite obvious, if only you are to think."

She was sat at the kitchen table, looking into a crystal ball, her hair pinned up with her wand into a bun and adorned with an obnoxiously purple flower.

"Maybe the ball will tell me," he said. "Why have you pinned your hair up with your wand?

"You do not have the talent for Divination," she said, a statement with which Sirius was forced to agree. He'd managed to smash a crystal ball once, and that was his most successful moment with one. "And if you use a sticking charm on your hair, it's a pain to get it all undone."

That answered that one, even if the rest of Sirius' questions remained unanswered.

He was fairly sure that Hermione used elastic bands on her hair.

The weather was grim along the North Yorkshire coast, and Sirius had taken to going out as a dog if he wanted exercise. Padfoot's coat dried quicker, and he just felt less bloody wet. And, besides, he'd made friends with the elderly lady who ran one of the chip shops on the beachfront, and with the weather improving she wad opening up more frequently, which meant snacks for Padfoot.

It wasn't that he didn't have food at home, but keeping four of them on Luna's Ministry salary was not the easiest of feats.

It was about the freedom, too, the beach runs. The fact was, he was still not able to go wherever he pleased. He'd been left for dead by the Death Eaters, after all, if under a fake name. Regulus has known who he was. There was another one of him somewhere out there, and Polyjuice constantly was untenable. And undesirable.

But he always returned to the house, before too long. He had never much liked being alone.

They went out again, when the rains began to ease. The evenings were beginning to grow lighter, and nightfall later. And, in terms of what was important in Sirius' life, that meant the Death Eaters attacked later.

It was the second time they had been out as a group, after the attack at the Lupin's. The first had not happened. They'd hung around on their appointed street corners for five hours, and then they'd gone home. It had been worth it, less for the wasted time but for the confirmation that lives were being saved.

If you ignored the screaming headline of the next day's Daily Prophet, announcing the deaths of a different family in place of the first, that was.

And when the days rolled towards May, they found that less and less of their trips out resulted in anything at all happening. Unless Ginny had received information from the Order, none of the small-scale attacks on their list were happening as they had done Sirius' first time around. And that was worrying. That meant, to Sirius' untrained eye, that they were losing control. Losing their advantage against Voldemort.

The others felt it too, he could tell.

He awoke one morning, or early afternoon, in truth, in early May to the sound of fireworks exploding.

"What are you doing?" he asked, going into the living room to find Ginny letting off fireworks, and the radio blasting out over the top of the noise. He put his hands over his ears. "I hope you've used a Silencing Charm, the Muggles will hear this."

"It's the anniversary," said Ginny.

"Of what?"

"Of the end of the war," said Luna.

"Remus died today," said Ginny, and threw a rocket at the ceiling. It bounced off, almost hit the light fitting, and proceeded to ricochet around the room, almost taking off Sirius' nose. "And Fred. And Tonks, and fucking Voldemort, but the fireworks aren't for him."

"Aren't you going to set the house on fire?" Sirius was still not understanding, even if it was an anniversary of death, and he understood the principles of exploding things at a death.

"No," said Ginny. "Why'd we do that?"

"We've charmed the fireworks so they won't," Hermione explained. "Fred and George made some significant improvements to the magical fireworks you know, and Ginny used to work in their shop sometimes, so she knows all the charms."

"It is all perfectly safe," said Luna, and Sirius trusted that not at all.

"So it's to remember the people that died?"

"Yeah. There was too many of them. And Fred was good at fireworks, and well, we didn't know what the rest of them would have wanted." Ginny shrugged.

And Sirius could definitely agree with that.

He and Hermione had dinner together that evening, something they'd taken to doing sometimes, just the two of them.

"I can never decide how I feel about that last battle of the war," she said, toying with the last piece of pasta on her plate. "On one hand, it ended it. My best friends all survived. But so many people didn't, and it's always felt wrong to celebrate it. The Ministry did these big events, the first two years, and they never worked out the tone, either. The first was all sombre, and the second was almost like a party. Neither of them were right."

"I can see that," he said. He wondered how they would have celebrated the end of the war, if he hadn't been off chasing Peter and James hadn't been dead. He'd asked Remus, once, what he'd done. "Remus used to avoid the official things and drink himself into oblivion, as far as I can tell."

"That was George's tactic," said Hermione.

"It's all a pile of shit."

"And we're doing it again, aren't we? Do you ever wonder why it was you? Why you have to put yourself through this, this rubbish over and over again?"

"All the time," he said. Three wars, although he'd only managed to make a meaningful contribution to the first one.

"I don't want you to die this time," she said.

Sirius looked up, startled. He didn't much know what to say to that.

"I don't want you to die either," he settled on. Was that an admission of love? He had not the first clue about real, adult relationships, on the whole. He was dancing blind, as it were. All these things, all these places where you could trip up, and yet that simple phrase seemed to satisfy her because she reached over the table and grabbed his hands. Surprised, he dropped his fork, and it clattered to the floor as she kissed him, over the top of the table and the remains of her pasta and the rubbish Ginny left everywhere.

And it felt right. It felt like he wanted it to continue forever, and that killing Voldemort didn't matter so much as continuing to kiss her.

They broke apart, in the end, and he attempted to reach down to adjust his, er, problem without drawing too much attention to himself.

"I really do quite like you, Sirius Black," she said.

"I like you, too." He wondered if he ought to have used a different word.

"Do you think any of us will die?"

He flustered. "Erm, no, I hope not. Fucking hell, Hermione, I don't know. It's a war, isn't it? How can you know?"

"We don't," she said, rather sadly, and bent down to pick up his fork, handing it back to him. "I think that's the problem. This could be our last night together."

It wouldn't be, because tomorrow neither of them were supposed to be going anywhere, and she was supposed to be helping him with something for Project Ring, but that wasn't the point, was it? And he understood.

If there really was that chance, he'd have pulled her upstairs at that.

They'd been sharing a bed, more nights than not, hers, always. He'd never yet let her into his attic. He ought to.

But for now she needed cheering up, and he had an idea that was almost as selfish than just going upstairs for a shag.

"Come on," he said, checking his pocket-watch. "I've got something to show you. I think the others would like it, too."

He went into the living room, where Ginny sat next to Luna. The blonde girl was reading, the ginger attempting to knit. He went to the radio, and pulled it to the floor, where he sat with it on his lap and began to twiddle with the dials.

"Prongs," he muttered. "Moony. Shack. Mouldy."

"What are you doing?" asked Hermione, and although he couldn't see her he could feel her presence standing behind him.

"Hang on," he said. "Voldy-poo."

"It sounds like he's looking for Potterwatch," said Ginny. "Except that hasn't been invented yet."

"Potterwatch?" asked Sirius, turning his attention from the maroon coloured radio for a moment. "What's that?"

"Fred and George created it," said Hermione. "In the last year of the war, they used to broadcast news and stuff about the war."

"Order used it to pass messages, too," said Ginny.

"Ah," said Sirius, looking over at the three of them with a grin. "Fred and George most certainly did not invent that. Tell me, did a certain werewolf ever appear on the programme?"

"Yeah," said Ginny, one eyebrow raised. "All the time."

"Let's say what I'm looking for is the original Potterwatch."

He tried out a few more words, and in the end the radio crackled into life with the code-word _Benji_.

"And tonight we'll be discussing how to protect your home from Death Eaters."

"Aside from joining their ranks, of course, which is most certainly not endorsed by this programme."

"Certainly not. Any Death Eaters that are listening, kindly fuck off, and report to Alastor Moody immediately. That's an order from Voldemort himself, kids."

"That's you," said Ginny, incredulously. "Old you. You're on the radio. Remus never told me about this!"

"Now, firstly. If you can, it is wise to add a simple Caterwauling Charm to your property. This easy-to-cast charm will allow you to have advance warning the instant someone steps onto your garden, giving you vital time to get away." Remus' voice was interrupted by the sound of caterwauling in the background. "Thank you, Periwinkle, for that beautiful demonstration of the truly ear-curdling sound that it makes. Please now turn it off."

Sirius' voice came through the radio sounding stressed. "You didn't teach us the counter-charm. Also, I've told you, I'm not being Periwinkle. It's girly."

"It's in the book."

"Which book?" That was James, and Sirius' stomach did a little flip at hearing it. "There's thousands of the fucking things. Millions! Indescribable quantities!"

"Weren't you listening in Charms, Spikes? _Finite._ " That was Peter, and his stomach sank, and his fists automatically balled up.

"Erm. No."

"And thank you for that demonstration, lads. We were going to do a proper one, but there we have it. These idiots have done it already, and I for one can't cope with listening to that noise any more times. Sounds like Periwinkle when you wake him up in the morning."

"Does not."

"Er, does. We all know, and I'd say we know better than you, because you're usually half asleep when you're making it."

"Hey," said Ginny. "It really does!"

"I like your code-names," said Luna. "Periwinkle suits you. I suppose you could not use the other ones, because some Death Eaters would have known them."

"And now, for step two." Remus sounded exasperated. "Identifying a Death Eater."

"Yeah, because trust me on this, you do not want to accidentally hex your mother-in-law."

"Ahahaha yeah but the Mrs' reaction was hilarious. He sang Slytherin Quidditch songs for a week!"

"She was wearing a dark dress, in my defence."

"She looks nothing like a Death Eater."

"So, who can tell me what a Death Eater looks like."

'"Oh, me, Professor!"

"That's not my codename."

"It looks evil and horrible and like it hasn't washed it's hair in months!"

"Well, some of them do, yes, but I meant in general…"

"They all project a sense of doom like Darth Vader."

"No. Okay, yes. They also do that. But can we please focus!"

"They all like pineapple on their pizzas."

"No! Pineapple on pizza is the food of the gods! All of you, get a grip!" Remus breathed in heavily, audibly over the radio. "Death Eaters wear silver masks and long, dark robes, and if you're unlucky enough to get up close they all sport a snakey tattoo on the left forearm. Don't touch it, definitely don't touch it. It summons old Voldy-pie himself. That's how you know that you're facing a real Death Eater, and not some idiot who accidentally cursed themselves with an alchemy spell after falling asleep in the library."

"That was one time, and nobody lets me forget it. Nobody. I could tell stories about you, too, Professor."

"But you won't, because I've read more books, and I know some excellent hexes."

"Did you really spell your own face silver?" asked Hermione.

"I did." Sirius was beginning to regret letting them listen to this. "And Dumbledore called me in for a serious chat about taking the piss out of symbols of fear and appropriate pranking tactics. It was an accident for Merlin's fucking sake."

Ginny was sniggering. "Sorry, but it's hilarious."

"It also hurt. Do you know how much it hurts when your face is metal?" That was the younger Sirius talking, but the older one felt that it summed up that particular little situation nicely, too.

They listened until the end of the programme, and Sirius relaxed, holding Hermione's hand and listening to the days when he and his friends had just about believed themselves invincible still. The lump of lead in his stomach still showed itself every time Peter spoke, but he could cope with that.

These weren't his Marauders, these girls sat with him, and they would never replace those boys he had lived and fought and laughed with. But they were pretty good.

"And that's all for tonight, kids."

"Yes, tune in next time for: how to recognise and kill evil snakes."

"I maintain that the title of the next episode should be 'why all snakes are fucking evil bastards and must die'."

"But then one could say the same about werewolves, my dear Professor."

"Fuck off, Periwinkle."

A loud wailing sounded over the radio, and there was the sound of somebody falling off a chair. It had been Sirius, he remembered it well.

"Is that Death Eaters?"

"No, it's… shit, it's Lily."

"Don't hex her, whatever you do."

"Can I?"

"You'll regret it. And not because I'll get you, but because she will."

"Ahh, Spikes is terrified of his girlfriend."

"Fiance, Peri."

"Don't call me…"

The transmission cut out, to the sounds of caterwauling, swearing, and what seemed to be a pile of books falling over. And Sirius relaxed into his, his Hermione's arms, and wondered if he ought to be calling her his girlfriend yet.

a/n: The original Star Wars came out in 1977. I like the idea that the Marauders went to see it.

Pineapple on pizza is the worst.


	39. Chapter 39: Crystal Fog

**Chapter Thirty Nine: Crystal Fog**

 _Ginny_

 _May 1979, The Crossing, Lincolnshire_

Ginny knocked three times on the back door, as instructed, and waited. It was likely to be a long wait. She could hear the sound of Lily shouting, occasionally punctuated by Mad-Eye Moody, and even less frequently by the feeble remonstrations of James Potter and the younger version of Sirius Black.

"Putting me in danger, James, that's what you were doing!"

"Lily, I…"

"I don't see how you thought that was acceptable! I know you think that show's just for the Order, but the Death Eaters are listening! They're spying on everything they can and you said my name! On the radio! Where anyone could have heard it, and Lily isn't a wizarding name, is it? There's not that many of us!"

"Constant vigilance, Potter, how many times do I have to tell you?"

She considered sending in a Patronus. Constant vigilance, indeed. You'd think they'd have learnt not to argue with the windows open.

Instead she went for the time-honoured approach, and threw a stone at the window.

Moody opened it, his eyes spinning in all directions even without the magical one he would later gain and his wand out.

"Oh," he said, on spotting her. "It's you."

"Nice weather," said Ginny, wandering over and, much to Moody's surprise, climbing in through the open kitchen window. She slithered down from the worktop, landing on the floor with a gentle bounce. "Hi, James, Lily, Sirius, Moody."

"Don't talk to them," said Lily, with venom. "They're fools."

"They'll get themselves killed, or worse," said Mad-Eye, and he tapped his staff on the floor to emphasise his words.

"Okay," said Ginny, casting a look at the two forlorn men leaning against a wall. She considered intervening, but they'd done a really quite stupid thing. "Do you know where Remus is? We've got something we need to be doing." At Sirius' raised left eyebrow, she continued. "For the Order."

"Upstairs," said James. "Can you tell him we're sorry, again?"

"Don't you go telling him anything!" said Lily. "These utter, complete and utter, fucking morons don't deserve to get forgiven!"

"She has a point," said Mad-Eye. "I've got half a mind to suspend the two of you from Order business for a while. We agreed to the codenames, we did not agree to the blatant disregard for rules!"

Ginny left them to it, and went to the stairs with the sounds of Lily's renewed shouting following her. Lily had a point, and so did Mad-Eye. Moody. If she couldn't straighten that in her head, she'd call him Mad-Eye out loud before long.

"Remus?"

"Oh, hi, Phil," he said, sat on his bed scratching out a letter with a quill. "Just finishing this up, sorry."

"James and Sirius say they're sorry," she said, feeling a stab of pity for the two idiots downstairs and deciding to pass on the message.

"For what?" he asked, and then appeared to remember. "Oh. I've told them not to worry about that. Seems like the Death Eaters know about me, anyway. Snape most likely told them and if he didn't, Rowle did. So they don't need to be sorry. I'm a target, with or without them."

"You don't need to accept whatever they do, you know," she said, sitting on the end of his bed. It was neat, the faded burgundy bedsheet stretched across the bed as if he made if every morning. Peter's bed, on the other side of the room, had the covers balled up in the centre. 'Lily doesn't, and James still loves her, doesn't he?"

"She's the love of his life," he said. "It's different."

"How?"

"Just, you know. Friends can be replaced. The love of your life can't."

Now that was something Ginny had experience with. She'd tried to replace Harry, with Micheal and Dean, because they were nice and liked the same things as she did and made her laugh. But they hadn't been Harry.

Not that she was much convinced of a single 'love of your life' any more.

"I dunno," she said. "I reckon they'd let you shout at them a little bit. Maybe not quite as much as Lily. Sirius might let you shout at him more than he lets Lily shout, though."

Remus laughed. "At school, if there was one person Lily hated more than James, it was Sirius." He scratched out his signature onto the parchment, and gently rolled it up.

"I can see that," said Ginny. "Who are you writing to?"

"My dad. They got attacked, last week. I found out about it from Frank Longbottom."

"Oh. Shit. I'm sorry to hear that," she said, and then, very much as an afterthought, "are they alright?"

"Yeah. Fine. Mum's a Muggle, dunno if I said that before. So it could have been that why they were targeted, or because I'm a thing, or because they've worked out I'm in the Order. Maybe it's better not to know why. Maybe then I can't think it's my fault." He smiled, and it was the least convincing one Ginny had seen in at least a month. "That's what Sirius reckons. Pete thinks I should ask. Says he'd rather know. But him and James have normal parents, so I'm going to go with Sirius' advice."

He sealed the parchment with a wobbling hand, and threw it sideways onto the bed is.

"I don't know where our owl is."

"I think one of my housemates has one you could borrow." She paused, because she didn't really have much idea of what to say. She told Sirius frequently that he was shit at knowing what to say, and he was, but there was also a reason that she was usually sent to stop him being a dick rather than to deal with Hermione. "If it's because of you, it's not your fault."

"That almost sounds as though it was my fault."

"No," she said. "It isn't. It's their fucking fault. That man who attacked you and the rest of them."

"I know that," he replied. "I think."

"Best you can hope for, sometimes." She slipped her arm around his back at the same time as his went around to her shoulders, and she tipped her head sideways to rest on him where he sat.

"It's all a pile of shit," he said. "And talking of that. We're due to meet Gideon and Fabian in an hour, aren't we?"

"Yeah." Much as she wanted to stay right where she was.

They left just after nine in the morning, Apparating a mile or so away from their destination into the dilapidated toilets of a shopping centre that had seen better days. They climbed aboard a local bus. Remus sat at the back, reading a battered paperback novel, and Ginny stood near the front, looking out of the window at the low rise flats and terraced houses that lined the suburban roads. She got off a stop after Remus did, and turned into a corner shop in order to wait for him.

"Oh, hello, I didn't see you there," said Remus, a tin of cat food in his hand. The code for 'I don't think we're being followed, do you?'

"Neither did I," said Ginny. "How's your mother doing?" She had bought a pint of milk, now dangling off her arm in a shopping bag. That signalled that she also did not think they were being followed. She'd thought this was overkill, too much security for what was really a low-level operation.

"Mother's fine," he said. His voice cracked a little on the word 'mother'. "She's improving. Can't get down to the shop for the food for Tiddles yet, though. I'll walk you back, when I've bought this."

Leaving the shop, Remus dropped the cat food, and checked around him. The street was deserted, he said, with a nod of his head and no words. Ginny tapped her foot on the floor as she waited.

"Why all the measures? Can't we just Disillusion ourselves?" she asked, when they were a distance away and the crease had left Remus' forehead.

"Last week we nearly lost a couple of people. They're learning to detect us Disillusioned, which makes sense, we can find them these days. And with what James and Sirius did, Moody's worried I'll be more of a target. And we don't think they know about you, still. Moody still wants you kept quiet if we can."

"I remember," said Ginny. She quoted Moody. "Anyone they don't know about is a major asset."

Moody had always thought like that, but still.

"Gideon and Fabian won't be far."

"What happened with the people?"

"They saw them arrive. Led them into a trap. They've tracked people back to our safe places before." Remus looked over his shoulder again, quick as a flash and disguised as crossing a road safely. "I'm wondering if we'll all survive this. We're here."

Before Ginny could respond, he flung open a door to a block of flats and darted inside. Ginny followed, just as the rain began to splatter onto the pavement behind them.

"You saw Lily, then?" Remus asked, as they climbed the stairs to the top floor of the building in which they were to meet the Prewett brothers. "James is worried she's going to break up with him."

"She's not," said Ginny. "She's just angry. I think, anyway." She added the last bit at his raised eyebrows.

"Good." Remus walked with a slight limp, his left leg never rising as high from the stairs as his other. "Not that she's wrong to be angry. But they don't need to break up."

"Even in these times, there ought to be a little more love in the world," said Ginny. Saying it, she was reminded of sitting by Bill's hospital bed the night Dumbledore had been killed. Murdered. Professor McGonagall had said something similar to Remus, about him and Tonks. Tonks would be, well, Ginny had never been much use at that sort of thing. Too young for him to consider her as a partner, anyway.

"Yes," said Remus. "I thought it was a bit silly. Peter's prevaricating over proposing to Marlene, and he's thinking about that, and Lily's worried about wedding plans, and there's someone out there trying to kill us. But it isn't, is it?"

Ginny thought of him and Tonks, and how she'd felt for Harry, and Hermione and Ron kissing in the middle of that battle at Hogwarts. "No, it isn't," she said.

Remus stopped on the top step, and Ginny on the one below it before she collided with him.

"You know how I said Rowle thought you were my girl? Are you?" It wasn't accusing, but more of a mumbled query.

Ginny shrugged. "Are you asking."

"Yes," he said. And then, with more conviction, he said it again. "Yes. Yes I am. Will you be my girl?"

"Course," said Ginny. "Though I don't think anyone's said it like that since the 1940s."

Remus blushed furiously. "You know what I mean." He reached for her hand, squeezed it, and set off walking again.

The came around the corner into the corridor of the block of flats, onto a long, thin balcony with a line of doors, red and then blue and then red again. Antonin Dolohov had been seen outside number thirty-four, and apparently gone inside, and exited before disappearing into a dirty pub. He'd never rematerialised, and it was suspected he had Apparated away from the toilets. And he was tied up with their investigation into the Muggles being captured, and so for lack of any better leads they had decided to watch the house.

It fitted the profile, the flat behind the blue door of number thirty-four with no adornments except for a brass number nailed just above the standard steel postbox, both supplied by the local authority the house was leased from. The owners, as much as Ginny's paperwork had managed to ascertain, fitted the profile. A Squib, her Muggle husband, and their two adult children, both young men. One was apprenticed to a plumber, the other appeared to be in the Navy and as such rarely at the property. The woman, the Squib, took in ironing, and the husband worked at a factory making car parts. They had little money, although enough, and kept themselves to themselves, with no family in the city.

The two young men were exactly the type that had been disappearing.

Ginny and Remus knocked on the door of number thirty-two, next door to it. A ruffled looking Fabian Prewett opened it, dressed in blue denim overalls and a bright yellow hard hat. His feet were bare on the threadbare carpet.

"Mornin'," he said. "Come on in."

"You know you don't need to wear the hat when you're not actually at work," said Remus, as the door clicked closed behind them and Fabian took up his watch post again. "Honestly. I don't understand how you purebloods make it to lunchtime."

"Truth is, kid, we wouldn't in the Muggle world," said Gideon. The flat was small enough that he could easily be heard from the back of it, where he sat out on the balcony in jeans and a t-shirt, smoking a cigarette. "I dunno how Muggleborns do in ours. I reckon you half-bloods have it best."

"Except Remus, because he's an idiot," said Fabian. "Take my hat off, indeed. It was part of the costume Dorcas gave me. She's a Muggleborn, she knows her shit."

"I'm assuming she also gave you shoes," said Remus, with a pointed look at Fabian's feet. "And you don't seem to have taken wearing those as important."

Fabian shrugged. "You're an idiot, Lupin."

"Already said that, Prewett. Get some new lines, you're boring me now."

"Ooh," said Gideon. "I've got one. Why're you holding our cousin's hand?"

Ginny felt Remus' grip on her hand slacken for a fraction of a second, then tighten. "She's my girlfriend," he said.

"Ooooooh," said Fabian and Gideon, in stereo. "Your girlfriend!"

"Yeah. She is." He looked down at Ginny with that smile, the one that she'd realised made her melt a little bit, and his voice came with the hint of wonder that suggested he did not quite believe his own good luck.

Gideon stood up, and dropped his cigarette to the floor, crushing it under his shoe. "Shit," he said. "There's someone down there, and it looks a hell of a lot like Dolohov. And two more with him. Three."

"They don't usually come in daylight," said Fabian, focusing closer on his own post. "Sure of that, Gid?"

"Sure as the Cannons will come bottom of the League."

"Shit it is, then."

Remus and Ginny went to the balcony, and Ginny was certain Gideon was correct. She'd have recognised Dolohov anywhere. She'd seen him kill Remus, before. She squeezed his hand, still in hers, even though he wouldn't know why. And next to him was Bellatrix Lestrange, and one of the Lestrange brothers, Ginny had never known which was which, and a skinny, blonde man that was Lucius Malfoy in his prime.

"Yeah," said Remus. "Shit about covers it."

"Plan?" asked Fabian. 'You're the genius, Lupin."

"Wait," he said. "Give them a minute. I don't think they know we're here, or they'd be being more subtle, wouldn't they? Go inside, or they'll try to kill us on the spot as either Order spies or Muggle bystanders. We've got the advantage if they don't know about us."

Ginny pulled her wand from her sleeve, as Gideon produced his from a jeans pocket. Remus' was already in his hand.

It was a long ten minutes that they waited in the flat, crouched amongst the broken furniture, the cardboard boxes and the abandoned knick-knacks that dotted the carpet. Fabian, at the door, held his hand out, ready to give the signal. Ginny felt her chest fill with butterflies and the familiar restless feeling in her feet. Beside her, Gideon lit a cigarette, and Remus' eyes traced the progress of a spider across the wall. Nobody said a word.

Fabian raised his hand, the be ready sign.

Ginny realised she had been holding her breath.

Gideon extinguished his cigarette.

Remus leant over, and kissed Ginny on the cheek.

Fabian gave the second signal.

As one, without a word, they stood. Gideon and Fabian took the front door, and Remus and Ginny the balcony. Ginny swung up onto the railings, reached across, and deftly leapt onto the neighbouring balcony over the foot or so of empty space and dangerous height below them. Remus, with much less athleticism, followed her.

A small trail of green sparks arrived next to them, and Remus blasted open the back door.

The older Muggle lay dead on the floor of the neighbouring flat, still and quiet on the clean lino of the kitchen floor. Beside him, his sons were bound, and Dolohov stood over them, hatred etched onto his face and his wand out. He swivelled as he heard the twin explosions at the front and the back of the flat, and the curse meant for one of the young men hit the Lestrange in his place.

And after that Ginny lost track. She fought to keep herself from falling, and Remus from harm, forced to avoid the curses of the Death Eaters and any of the ones fired by the Prewetts that missed their mark. Despite the sunlight streaming in through the back door, it was impossible to tell who was winning and who was losing. There was a Death Eater down, Malfoy, and a Prewett too. Remus was bleeding heavily from the shoulder.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " shouted the standing Prewett, Fabian, judging by his wonky construction hat, and a cow Patronus of all things burst into existence before charging off through the open front door.

Ginny ducked as a Killing Curse shot her way, straightened up, fired a curse of her own, then swiftly ducked again as the rebound flew across the room from behind her.

" _Reducto!_ " she screamed, and a cabinet full of crockery and saucepans burst open above the head of Bellatrix Lestrange, causing the woman to scream in pain. Not that it would help for long. She'd never cast a spell to kill before, but with every fight she wondered if she ought to. " _Depulso!_ "

Bellatrix zoomed backwards into a wall, along with half the saucepans. Ginny darted to the two young Muggles. One looked as though he was about to pass out, though whether from a spell that had been used on him or just the shock of seeing the fight Ginny did not know. She cut them loose with a muttered Severing Charm, and then stopped as Remus fell over sideways with a grunt and the first half of a curse. The rest was lost to the floor as his head hit the checked lino and his wand rolled away Lucius Malfoy closed down on him.

Ginny chose Remus.

" _Sectumsempra!_ " she shouted, and slashed wildly with her wand.

Malfoy's blood spattered back and hit her and the nearest Muggle, just as a handful of people ran in through the front door, including Sirius and Peter.

"Peter!" Ginny shouted. "Get them out!" She waved her wand in the direction of the Muggles behind her, shooting sparks, and dashed to where Remus lay.

"Alright, doing it!"

"Shit, Prewett, what's going on?" Sirius deftly cursed Dolohov, joining Fabian in his duel. Ginny ignored him, opting to let some other Prewett deal with the problem. Moody was securing Bellatrix in the corner, and the small, dark Dorcas Meadowes was dealing with the Lestrange. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to Lucius Malfoy, but Ginny did not pause to wonder why.

"Remus," she said, landing at his side. "Remus. Shit. Remus."

He didn't reply, even if his lips moved slightly in response to her question. He lay back on the floor, coated in his own blood and that of Lucius Malfoy, his eyes glassy. His skin had paled to the point where the scar that sliced across his face stood more prominent than usual, the bluish-grey of the scar tissue almost luminous. She shook his shoulders gently, repeating his name.

The wound was long and jagged, not any severing curse she knew. She tried the catch-all spells for healing, and the blood flow slowed, but the line itself did not heal. She tried again, putting more power into the spell, as much as she could manage. About as much happened.

"Got to get him back to Headquarters, girl," said Moody, standing over her. "Go on, take him. We'll sort things out."

Ginny looked up. Gideon and Fabian were gone, and Dolohov and the Muggles and Peter. The dead Muggle remained, and the bound forms of Bellatrix and the other Lestrange. And Malfoy. He looked dead, too. But that couldn't be correct. She'd cast the curse that had taken him down. Dorcas stood in the centre of the room, looking glum, and somehow Sirius had joined Ginny at Remus' side on the blood soaked floor.

"Where are Gideon and Fabian?"

"Gone back to Headquarters. Gideon's going to need care, but he's going to be alright. More than we can say for Malfoy. You need to get Lupin back, now, before he goes the same way?"

"What way?"

"Dead, girl."

"He's not…" Ginny stopped. That could wait. "I don't know where Headquarters is."

"That you don't. Black, take them both, can you?"

"Dunno if I can. Never side-alonged with two, before, and Remus doesn't look good, Moody. I'm worried I'll Splinch him."

"Alright. You get Lupin gone. I'll take Miss Prewett later."

And so Ginny watched as Sirius and Remus went from her, and she was left standing over a dead body that she was responsible for. Moody and Dorcas went into deep discussion over who at the Ministry to contact, and whether they ought to call Dumbledore first, while Ginny stared at Lucius Malfoy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he reminded her of Draco.

Except the hair. Lucius Malfoy's hair was longer, and slightly thicker.

If he was dead, she was not sad that he was dead. He'd given her that diary, hadn't he? He hadn't known, they didn't think, but he'd known he was giving her something horrific. And he could have.

In a way, he was more responsible than Voldemort. Voldemort had been evil, but without a specific target. Overarching evil. Not specifically targeting Ginny Weasley evil.

Did that matter?

He could never do that. The future Ginny would be safe from the diary.

She would have been anyway. Hermione had stolen it. It would be destroyed before Ginny was born.

Shit, she had killed him, hadn't she? She was a murderer.

Even Harry hadn't technically murdered. Just a rebounded spell. He'd used Expelliarmus, for fuck's sake, a charm an average second year could cast competently. She'd used Dark magic, and she'd killed a man without a second's thought whether there was a different spell she could have used.

Ginny leant down next to Malfoy, and felt his neck.

No pulse.

She burst into tears.

"Hey, hold on, it's alright," said Dorcas. "You're not evil, you know."

Ginny swallowed. "I didn't think I was. Not really." It was a lie, and Dorcas must have known it.

"We all do, the first time we kill someone."

"Have you?"

The slightly older woman was calm, collected and self-assured, from what Ginny had seen of her. She spoke with a quiet voice, never much higher than a whisper, and moved with a practiced, calm sort of grace. Ginny could not picture her as a killer.

"This war's been going on a while," said Dorcas. "You don't last six months if you're not going to kill. I've killed three people, and I cried the first time too."

"I don't want to be the sort of person that kills people," said Ginny.

"None of us do." Dorcas looked over to Moody. "Not even him."

"Rather see them suffer," said Moody. "Best get you out of here, girl. Standing with the body won't do you any good, and besides, authorities will be here shortly. I don't want to have to explain you two."

"I'll take you to Headquarters," said Dorcas. She held out her arm, and Ginny took it, taking a deep breath before she felt the familiar suck of the Apparition.

James was awaiting them in a farmhouse kitchen, sat at the table with a jug of water in front of him and a pile of parchment. His hair was ruffled, his eyes ringed with dark skin as if he had not slept for weeks. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses before greeting Dorcas and Ginny.

"He's stable," said James. "Best not to go through, though. Marlene says she needs space to work."

"I'll go and check everything," said Dorcas, striding to the door. "I do work for St Mungos, after all." She looked back at Ginny. "Don't dwell on it," she advised. "You did what you had to do, and you've probably saved our grumpy werewolf's life."

"Sirius is somewhere," said James, gesturing at the door Dorcas had gone out of. "Think he's getting a shower. You look like you need one. Or a drink. What'd you do?"

"Killed Lucius Malfoy," said Ginny. She sat down, and placed her head on the table. She heard the scrape of a chair, and James' footsteps.

"Guessing a high five isn't appropriate," he said. There was a clank of bottles, and then the thud of something being put on the table in front of her. "Drink up."

Ginny removed her forehead from the table and eyed the drink. "I killed someone."

"And before me, too, and you've only been here weeks."

"It isn't a game."

"No, sorry. It isn't. Shit. That's what Lily told me, too." He looked defeated, like a lost child.

"She was right."

"Yeah. Annoying thing about Lily is that she's usually right." He sighed, and took a drink of his own whisky. "I worry sometimes this war is making us all alcoholics."

"Either that or hard drugs," said Sirius' voice from the doorway. "Dorcas knows where to get them, she says. Her brother is something called a drug dealer in the Muggle world. She won't let me buy anything from him, though."

"And for good reason," said James. He downed the rest of his glass, and topped it up, before reaching across to tap Ginny's glass with the bottle. "She killed Malfoy," he explained to Sirius. "Her first kill."

"I didn't even use the Killing Curse," said Ginny, entirely unsure if that was a positive or negative. Hermione might know. Luna would, but she probably wouldn't tell Ginny.

"Ah, well it doesn't count," said James, with a fake cheeriness.

Moody stomped into the room, and Ginny chose that moment to down the drink. Her first taste of the burning whisky had been the night Moody had died, she remembered. Malfoy might have killed him, it was impossible to tell according to Bill.

"Black. Potter. Miss Prewett."

"Moody," James nodded.

"Aurors aren't best pleased we caught them, but the Lestranges are in custody. Malfoy's been confirmed dead. Good work. You'll get over it, girl."

And it was at that point that Ginny remembered about Draco.

Or the world's future lack of Draco Malfoy, at any rate.

She burst into tears again.

All three men in the room stared at her, until James reached across to pat her on the back.

"It's okay," he said. "Malfoy was a twat of the highest order. I don't think even his wife liked him much."

"James!" hissed Sirius.

"You do a better job, then!"

"All of you are crap," said Lily. "Get out. Go help Gideon shift the stuff out the third floor so we can move Caradoc's stuff up there. We need his room for the patients."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to comfort the crying girl. Something tells me I'm better at it."

James' hand left her back, and Lily's replaced it. Ginny heard the slide of a chair as Lily took the seat next to her at the table, and then the quiet rustling of Harry's mum looking for a tissue in her pocket. "Here," she said. "Take it."

Ginny dabbed her eyes.

"Sorry," she said. Truth be told, she felt a bit pathetic. "I don't know why I keep crying about it. It's not as if I like him."

"I don't think you're crying for him," said Lily. "You're crying because something has changed in yourself. You're not the person you thought you were any more, you're suddenly someone whose capable of killing. You've discovered a new side to yourself. And you don't know if you like it."

Ginny thought that made a lot of sense, far more than anything anyone else had said.

"Studying a Muggle psychology course," said Lily. "By correspondence. It's really interesting. Wizards don't really have anything like it. After the war, I'd like to do something with it. I've got the NEWTs for Healing, so hopefully I'll be able to get in."

If she survived. The unsaid final words of her sentence hung in the air for both of them, but Ginny felt it more potently. She knew what she knew, after all.

For the first time since she had been stuck in this past, Ginny felt an overwhelming urge to tell someone everything. To tell Lily what would happen if her mission was not successful. To spill her entire story to Lily, in fact, everything that Harry had done and exactly what he meant to her. She reached over to grab Lily's hand. There was nothing she could say, it would go against everything that they had agreed. And would be likely to be counterproductive, anyway. People didn't cope with hearing of their own imminent death.

"That sounds really interesting," she said, instead.

"Yeah," said Lily. "It is. Shame about the war."

"Do you know how Remus is?"

Lily shook her head. "Marlene wouldn't let anyone in. She says he's stable, for now, but she's struggling to close the wound. I should ask, sorry, do you know what he was hit with? Or even who by?"

"No," said Ginny. "Sorry." There had been so much going on. He'd been fine, then he'd been bleeding but fine, and then he had been on the floor.

"It's okay. She's got Dorcas now, so she might know something. Marlene's not even quite finished her first year in training, so Dorcas is the expert."

"Weren't you and Marlene in the same year at school? How come you're not in the Healer training college like she is?"

"Ah. She's not a Muggleborn."

"That's shit."

"You get used to it. We know there are Death Eaters working for St Mungo's. I'm choosing to believe it's one of them that turned me down, someone properly evil, not that normal people are as prejudiced as that." She poured herself a drink. "I don't really drink, you know. Unfortunately I think people are probably that prejudiced, even if they wouldn't say it out loud."

Ginny didn't really know what to say. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I don't think James gets it," said Lily. "He's a pureblood. He's never had a door closed to him because of his blood status, and his family have money, too. He'd never have to get a job if he didn't want to, and he wouldn't even have to be careful with money. I have better NEWTs than him, you know, and he could join the Healer scheme without a problem I bet."

She sighed.

"I nearly broke up with him this morning, truth be told."

"Why?" Ginny's heart hammered in her chest, even though she knew that this had happened the first time around, because Sirius had told her. James and Lily had been fine after a week.

"It's just so thoughtless. I bet Remus wouldn't ever mention your name on some rebel radio broadcast. He'd think. He'd think, wait a moment, that might put my girlfriend in danger, so I won't do it!"

"I don't think he'd have done it on purpose, would he?"

"No. That's what he said." Lily drank. "Disgusting stuff, isn't it? We're meant to be getting married next month. But what we're doing, it's so dangerous. We could die if we slip up, and he's slipped up. And I know, I do, that he wouldn't do it deliberately, but he could have killed me."

"The Death Eaters," said Ginny. 'The Death Eaters could kill you."

"I suppose. You're right. He wouldn't. But what if we have children, and he's careless with them?"

"He won't do it again."

"How do you know that?"

Ginny released the other woman's hand. "Remus talks about all of you constantly. I know how much you mean to James. He's never going to do this again. He looked terrible last night, he just sat there, really, when he knew you were angry with him." She paused. "He thinks you're going to break off the wedding."

Lily put down her glass. "I'm not. I don't think I am. I just want him to understand."

"He does. I don't think he did, but he does now."

"He never got it in school," Lily said. "I've tried to explain to him for years. He saw that it was horrible, for Muggleborns, but he didn't really understand. He knew what Remus would be treated like if his, problem, was discovered. But the worst he'd ever had was a few Slytherins coming up and threatening to kill his parents for their activities against Voldemort, and his parents can handle themselves, and James laughed it off. And the Slytherins knew they couldn't really do anything, anyway.

"But they could get to us. They'd circle us and say that they'd kill our parents, and my parents can't fight back, Philomena. They'd just try to call the Muggle police, and what use would they be? We were scared to go around the castle on our own."

"It sounds like it was awful."

"It was. Shit, I was meant to be comforting you."

"It's okay. I don't think I feel so bad about it, any more." Another lie, but less of one.

"It's all so dangerous. All of it. Remus is unconscious, and Fabian's not much better, and I'm sat here whinging about my job prospects."

Ginny took the last mouthful of drink.

"Would you do anything else?" she asked. "If you could be safer?"  
"No," said Lily. "It's too important, isn't it?"

"Yeah," said Ginny.

"Are you Remus' girlfriend, now?"

"I think so. If he'll still have me now I'm a murderer."

"You killed to save him. That's pretty fucking romantic, Phil. For a shit wartime scenario where nothing is any good, anyway." She laughed a little bit, nervously. "Okay, it isn't. Ignore all of that. I don't usually drink, and I haven't had any breakfast." She looked at the clock, which said 2 o'clock. "Or any lunch."

"And if he survives."

"He will." Lily didn't look convinced. "Remus is the most resilient person I've met. If anyone can survive it, it's him."

Ginny had nothing to go on. This fight hadn't happened the first time around.

"Help me make lunch," said Lily. "It's sexist shite that the women always seem to end up making lunch, but I'm not going to starve over a principle. We don't have to make any for the men if we don't want to. And it keeps our hands busy without having to go and shift Caradoc's useless junk from the attic rooms."

 _Luna  
May 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

She had been spending a lot of time in front of the crystal ball, lately.

Luna had never decided if having information about what was to happen was something that helped, or hindered. She had thought long and hard about this. She had known that Professor Dumbledore was going to die, and of the manner of his death, and she had told him so. He had given her a strange look, and thanked her for the information. It had not seemed like it had been news to him, and he smiled, so he was pleased about it.

But he did not have the Sight. One knew another.

She had not known the date, and so when they had patrolled the corridors that evening that Harry Potter had gone off with the Headmaster, she had been almost as surprised by the outcome of the evening as the rest of them. Until she walked into Professor Snape's office to find Flitwick Stunned on the floor.

And that was part of it, why knowing could hinder. Because she had known, then, and she had been scared. She had seen the fight, and she had seen the death, and although she had not connected them she had known that she would need to fight. She had known about their trip to the Department of Mysteries. And she had been terrified, that first time that she had fought a Death Eater.

But she had also seen the other options, and they were much worse than if she had fought.

And she knew now, and she was rather more scared than she had been that day, even once she had accounted for the factor of the temporal distance from the fear and adjusted for age. One felt existential fear more with age.

One felt the weight of their own continued existence more, perhaps that was they way she ought to be saying it.

They sat at a crossroads, now. They always had, in a way, but this time, this time felt different. The crystal ball had never been more hazy. If she threw the cards, they came back with portents of warning, of caution, of danger and of death. They could drive one to insanity.

It was an imprecise art, yes. It was not something she would be able to explain to Hermione or even to Ginny. But the danger, the peril was coming back with regularity, and the paths of fate twisted in front of her like a river fighting it's course.

She had to remember that they were not the only ones seeking to influence these fates.

She saw individuals within the mess, and she could see a haziness over others. Poor Remus. He was in danger at that moment, a very grave danger. She saw that one clear enough. And the dark cloud, and the ones who had the possibilities of happiness, and those for whom it was next to certain.

Ginny was safe, though, in every future, provided Luna did not fail to act.

And Luna would not fail her Ginny. It would never be as Luna wished it, between the two of them, but that was unimportant. The girl she loved would survive.

 **a/n: Eurgh. Updates may be a bit all over the place for a while. Shortly after I posted the last chapter, my grandad died. It was expected, but still. We got there in the end with this one.**


	40. Chapter 40: Semantics

**a/n:** **Content warning: there is a scene in the middle of this chapter which describes the aftermath of torture and then a death, shortly after Voldemort and Regulus leave the drawing room and walk down the corridor. It's not a long scene.**

 **Chapter Forty: Semantics**

 _Regulus_

 _May 1979, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

A hundred or so quills scratched on parchment in the Great Hall, a hundred or so heads bent low over their examination papers. Regulus dotted his last 'i'.

It was, as much as it was anything else, entirely pointless.

He had studied not at all for this particular examination, for his NEWT level in Charms. It was not as if there were not books, after Hogwarts. Why was he required to memorise so much that he would so rarely require?

"Time is up, my witches and wizards, time is up."

The tall, dark wizard at the front of the room summoned their parchment forward with a flick of his wand, and dismissed them. Regulus was amongst the first to slide back his chair and stride from the Hall without a backwards glance.

He had three more examinations to go.

"Not the worst." Selwyn's assessment, as Regulus' friends formed a knot around him, earned itself some murmurs of agreement from his fellow Slytherins, and a nod from Regulus. It had been as he had expected it to be.

They swept into the courtyard as a group, all but one of them bearing the Dark Mark upon their left arm. The younger years of students minded them, avoiding the places they tended towards congregating and retreating into the shadows of a corridor as they approached. The small Slytherins tended towards a respectful gaze, or a yearning one. The others, more towards fear.

"Is the rumour true?" asked a sixth year boy, when Regulus and his group had settled in their usual segment of the courtyard. He was one of the ones Regulus had picked out himself as a potential recruit, clever, with a sharp eye for anything that was out of place. A Burke, so from a solid family. "About Malfoy?"

Regulus inclined his head, respectfully. "I am afraid that it is." His hands had shaken with anger when Narcissa had written to him with the news, followed by Rabastan Lestrange, and then his mother. He had considered cursing somebody.

"And the Lestranges?" asked another, a small, sandy haired lad in fifth year who Regulus had felt had a talent for the Dark Arts.

"My cousin and her husband have indeed been captured by the Ministry."

"Who did it?" asked a third younger student.

"The Auror Alastor Moody, and three companions, from the Order of the Phoenix. Of the Prewett family, if Antonin Dolohov's testimony is to be believed."

"I'll kill them," said the small, sandy haired boy. Regulus remembered that he, too, was a Lestrange, a cousin.

"And me," said the sixth year Burke boy, tall and solemn. "I wish to prove myself."

"Now," said Regulus, for he wished to retain order, even if he was rather pleased with his little nest of snakes. These were boys he trusted. It would not do to be overheard by those he did not. "We will wait for our orders from the Dark Lord, as we would not wish to be seen as lacking in discipline. And it is difficult for someone who is not of age to attend events."

"The Trace," muttered the Lestrange.

"Indeed. But I shall convey your feelings to the Dark Lord, and we can perhaps find our own, small revenges, can we not?"

The boys nodded, and conversation resumed its normal way. Some of them had a History of Magic test the next day; Regulus himself was awaiting Potions the day afterwards. A small few practiced Charms for the afternoon's practical examination. Regulus sat on a bench, and engaged in a conversation about prospects for after Hogwarts.

He was often thankful for his surname. Aside from the obvious benefits, he was also generally one of the first in any alphabetical queue. He completed his Charms practical prior to the rest of them, and was able to fly before dinner. Quidditch had been somewhat placed on the back burner in recent months, but there was something about the act of flying that still drew him in.

The freedom, perhaps.

He landed, and sent his broomstick on ahead of him with a house-elf, before his peace was disturbed.

"Ah, Mr Black." Filch, that old Squib. "The Headmaster has asked to see you."

"I will go after dinner."

"No, Mr Black. Now."

Regulus saw no obvious excuse, and started up into the castle to the top of it where the Headmaster kept his den. It was the third time he had been summoned to such a meeting since he had arrived back at Hogwarts after Christmas. Neither of the other two meetings had given the old man anything that he wished for, and Regulus was certain that this one would not, either.

"Ah, Regulus, do come on in. Sit down. Tea, I believe it is that you like?" Dumbledore sat with a book, which he replaced on the shelf as Regulus entered.

"Yes, sir." Regulus shielded his mind as he sat, watching the Headmaster pour tea from the silver teapot on his desk. He passed a small china mug to Regulus, then sat back in his chair, folding his hands on the desk in front of him.

"Regulus." He looked down over his glasses. "I have some information I wish to make you aware of."

"Go on."

"Your brother came to me recently. He seems to believe that you are now a member of Lord Voldemort's inner circle, that organisation that some call the Death Eaters. Furthermore, he believes that you act as some sort of ringleader amongst a group of fellow students, and that you may even have recruited them from within my school."

Regulus sat silently, his mug wrapped in one hand, and did not move. One did not act before they had the information they required.

"I do not believe Sirius to be lying, Regulus."

"You can believe what you like, sir, but it does not make it the truth." Sirius was not his brother, had not been for some years. It did not matter that he had betrayed Regulus. It did not matter at all.

Dumbledore sighed. "In other times, I would congratulate you on cleverness." He studied his own hands as he spoke now. "It is, after all, not incorrect. But we are not in those times, and I find myself having to root Death Eaters out from my own school. A school, Regulus. A place where everyone should be free to come and learn, without prejudice or fear. Particularly, without fear that a student may be willing to murder them or their family."

"Your Order of the Phoenix murdered Lucius Malfoy."

"Lucius Malfoy's death was regrettable. I should offer you my condolences. He was killed in a fight that he and his fellows, your fellows, perhaps, instigated. Trying to capture Muggles, for what purpose I do not know, but it was almost certain not to be positive. It was not the fault of his killer, I would say."

"Whose fault would you claim that it was?" Regulus' hand gripped his mug tighter.

"The peril of war, Regulus. A war that Lucius chose to become a part of. An instigator of, if I may be so bold."

"And yet you ascribe other deaths to murder."

"When a dark force enters a person's home, or workplace, with the intention to kill them, is that not murder?"

Regulus stood up. "I do not wish to discuss semantics when my friend has been murdered on your command."

"The Order are instructed to bring in suspected Death Eaters alive, and present them to the Ministry. As happened to your cousin and her husband. I have been more than clear on that. Bellatrix and Rodolphus will stand a fair trial. Lucius' death was not intended."

"What are you going to do about the one that killed him, then?" Regulus threw the mug of tea to the floor, the now lukewarm liquid splattering up his leg and onto his freshly-polished shoes. His hand shook, his heart hammered in his chest. "The Prewett, was she?. Will she be dealt with?"

"She did not strike to kill."

"He is dead, however." His voice quavered, and he wanted nothing more than to shout. But he did not.

"It was not part of my plan."

Dumbledore's voice remained impassive and calm, his face arranged into an expression of perfect vagueness. It was as if he was carved from stone, and animated by a magic that allowed only the most limited of behaviours.

But of course the old man had a plan. He was attempting to destroy wizarding society. How did he expect Regulus to trust him, to speak with him as if he was somebody who might know something of Regulus' troubles?

Regulus sat back down, hand on his lap, reaching for that stone-carved visage for himself.

"I do not believe you, Headmaster."

"That is your own prerogative. And for my own, I am worried for you, Regulus. Sirius' information is compelling, and I am forced to consider that I do, in fact, have Marked Death Eaters roaming the school. But I have not called you here today to argue about Lucius Malfoy. I would like to offer you a way out of Lord Voldemort's employ. It is easy for a young man from a good family to be drawn astray, and to find themselves in a situation where they cannot return."

Regulus' feet fought to be allowed to push upwards again, to carry him out of the room with a slam of the great wooden doors. Regulus stilled them.

"I do not believe that I have been led astray. I make my own choices, Headmaster."

Regulus was not his brother. He would not follow some doddering old fool wherever he led, in a quest for who knew what.

"Do we ever make entirely our own choices, Regulus? One could argue that every choice we make is steeped in other people's choices for us, other people's value systems and beliefs. One would have to exist entirely in their own vacuum for it to be possible to make their own choices without any influence at all."

Philosophy, again. His friends were dying, his family captured, and the old man sat philosophising.

"I suggest," he said, with as much ice in his voice as he could muster, "that you keep your counsel to yourself."

And with that Regulus calmly, politely, placed the untouched mug of tea on the Headmaster's desk and left the room.

He would no longer accept a summons there. The old man's only hold over him was an educational one, and he would be finished his NEWTs within the week. Regulus did wish for the qualifications, or he would have said his farewells in the Slytherin common room that evening. He required them for the Ministry job he had his eye on. No more, no less. Otherwise, school was playing, it was a pretence of being something that mattered. Regulus knew what his choices were. He had chosen them for himself.

He thought of many more things he ought to have said to Dumbledore, as he twisted through the castle and down towards the Slytherin common room. He chose the lesser travelled routes, deliberately. The last thing that he wished was to wander into someone who wished to converse with him. Or worse, a friend of his brother's.

Sirius.

It was not as though Regulus had not known that he was a blood traitor.

He supposed he had always thought of Sirius as a generalist blood traitor, someone who despised the ideology rather than the individuals concerned. But no. Sirius had betrayed his brother, personally. He had marked him out to the Order of the Phoenix as a target, had he not? And for all the old man's protests, it was clear to Regulus that the Order did indeed fight to kill.

Malfoy's funeral would be held on Sunday, and Regulus was determined to have his vengeance after that.

The girl had been a Prewett, more likely than not, Dumbledore had not denied that fact. And if she was, then her companions were from that family. The werewolf was not a concern. From Dolohov's account, he was likely dead.

He had been dear to Sirius. Regulus remembered. He and the werewolf had been friends, along with the Potter and the little, overweight half-blood boy.

Regulus could not smile at that.

Perhaps even Sirius did not deserve the pain of losing a friend. The werewolf had not struck the fatal curse after all. And he should have allied with the Dark Lord, like Greyback and the others of his kind. What lies had he been told by Dumbledore and his minions? It was a shame.

But then Sirius had made his choices, and Regulus had made his.

He made it to the common room without being disturbed by a soul. His attention was wanted, then, and he was able to join the group without betraying his emotion.

His Dark Mark burned that evening, and in truth Regulus was surprised it had not been sooner.

He hurried to Hambleton Hall, where the Dark Lord still held fort. Only Rabastan remained of the Lestrange family, him and their old, sick mother who sat holed away on the upper floor of the property. She was happiest there, Bellatrix had told him. The hustle and bustle of even the three other inhabitants was too much for her, at her age.

Rabastan offered refreshment, and Regulus accepted, and they engaged in idle small-talk.

"Where are our colleagues?" Regulus asked, after a while. "Are they not late, by now?"

"No. There will be nobody else, tonight," said Rabastan. "The Dark Lord requested you alone."

The Dark Lord stood in the centre of the room, when Regulus was shown through to him, entirely alone. His was back to Regulus and he was still, not moving even an inch as he surveyed the large, golden object he held in his hands.

"Ah, Regulus," he said, after some moments, turning to face Regulus.

Regulus stood impassive and calm, his mind open, his robes immaculate.

"I see you wish to avenge your friend, and your cousin."

"I wish to very much."

"That is commendable. However, we must agree on when. It would not do to be premature."

"No, it would not, my Lord." Regulus bowed his head, and the Dark Lord was silent for a few moments, as if assessing his prey.

"Regrettably, it is not fruitful to get into the Ministry's cells, not unless you can persuade someone over to our little cause. No, we shall wait until the day of their trial to rescue your cousin."

"July," said Regulus. "Selwyn, a valuable friend and associate of ours, is due to start work at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement next month. He has reported that they are holding Death Eater trials in July."

"Useful information." The Dark Lord examined the goblet in front of him, turning it over and over in his hands. "You will continue to gain information for our purposes. Please inform," his eyes fluttered to Regulus, before returning to the cup, "Selwyn that he will report to you on this matter. And you, of course, will report directly to me."

"I will, my Lord." Regulus' chest puffed in pride. He had known that he had made the right choices, had he not?

"I see you have argued with your Headmaster." It was not a question. The Dark Lord knew.

"He has been attempting to dissuade me from continuing within your employ."

"And I assume that he has been unsuccessful."

"Of course, my Lord." Regulus felt the gentle touch of Legilimency, as the Dark Lord confirmed that he was not lying. "I would not wish for anything else."

"You do not lie." He placed the cup on a small dais, and beckoned Regulus forward. "Come. I wish to show you something."

Regulus followed the Dark Lord through the ornate doors, along a lushly carpeted corridor, and down into a small, dark room that Regulus had never before had the reason to visit. The first thing that he noticed of it was the smell. It was a harsh, metallic smell, that permeated Regulus' nostrils and almost forced him to choke on the tang of it.

The room itself was dark, with curtains drawn over the windows. A single chair sat in the centre, empty. At the chair's base lay a body. It stirred, slightly, at the noise of the footsteps and at the rush of air from the door, and so it was alive. But barely, Regulus supposed, although he was not an expert on these things.

"You have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Silvius Rosier, have you Regulus?" The Dark Lords voice had not changed in tone or texture since their conversation in the Lestrange's drawing room, despite his eyes now being firmly trained on the body at his feet.

Regulus copied him. He kept eye contact with the body, and he adopted a similar relaxed pose, keeping his face calm and with what he expected was a look of mild interest.

"I have not, my Lord."

"Rosier did not possess your conviction. He appears to have wished to leave our little organisation. I do not tolerate my faithful servants losing that faithfulness, do I, Rosier?"

The body barely stirred, but it fought something, nonetheless.

"Unfortunately Rosier is not so polite as to answer when he is spoken to. _Imperio."_ It was as if the Dark Lord was talking of the weather.

A feeling began to grow in Regulus' stomach. He had last felt this feeling the day he had spoken to Sirius.

"You do not tolerate unfaithfulness, my Lord, to you or the cause." Those were the words Rosier's body said, but it was with great effort. They tumbled out in places, were eked out by the curse in others. His face was slashed a thousand times, Regulus supposed, until there was more bare muscle and bone than there was skin. It was probable his jawbone had been shattered. And that was his face, alone.

Regulus began to feel rather sick.

"Rosier has now learnt that. You are a clever boy, Regulus, and I expect that it is a lesson you will not require."

"I will not, my Lord."

"I think he has served his purpose. You will put him out of his misery for me, won't you, Regulus?"

Regulus raised his wand, and shielded his thoughts. He had been called upon to kill before, and he had acquitted himself well, then. Besides, this was a mercy, as much as anything else. In his position, Regulus would wish for death. He could do Rosier that, and fulfil the Dark Lord's wishes.

" _Avada Kedrava."_

Rosier was no more. The body alone remained.

"You have done well."

Regulus allowed his thoughts to flow freely again, the feeling of power in the words that he had heard from the Dark Lord chief amongst them.

"Now that Lucius has suffered at the hands of our foes, and Bellatrix and Rodolphus are rather indisposed at present, I would ask you to take action for our cause."

The feeling in Regulus' stomach appeared to grow wings.

"You will marry your fiancee, of course. We do require pureblood babies from good bloodlines, do we not? You will ensure that you have a worthy successor at Hogwarts before you leave the school for good. And you will receive further tasks that suit your skills. I have found you to be a most efficient spy and recruiter."

Regulus swallowed. "And will I be allowed to avenge my friend?"

"In time. Perhaps not immediately. I do so wish for you to have happiness in marriage and family."

Regulus allowed himself to feel that disappointment. It was natural. He was, indeed, the last of the Black line.

But the Dark Lord continued. "I understand if you are disappointed. You would not be of such use to me if you were not so keen to fight. But we must do what is required of us, not what we wish, must we not?"

Regulus nodded. He looked sideways and down, at the dead body at his feet. It smelt worse than ever.

"We do."

"But I do have one further task for you, tonight. I can feel your anger at your former brother. He betrayed you to Dumbledore, did he not? When you are next given the opportunity, I would ask you a small favour. Will you kill the blood traitor for me? We must all prune our family trees when required, after all."

Regulus straightened up, standing firm.

"I will."

He was dismissed, and he made some more small-talk with Rabastan, but really Regulus wished to be back at Hogwarts. Grimmauld Place would be preferable, but he had an exam in the morning. He needed to reflect on what they had discussed, and, of the utmost importance, what he had promised that he would do. It was no small job, even if it had seemed that way.

It was straightforward, in of itself. He would owl his mother in the morning, stating his wish to marry that summer. Adeline would be amenable, he was certain of this. He had taken her on a walk around the lake just a few days before, and she had said that she wished they could marry sooner than they had originally planned. Perhaps he would speak to her before he owled his mother. It would be correct, he thought.

He had the successor in mind. He could do the rest of the work he would be assigned, if it were similar in type. He could accept that he would not necessarily avenge Malfoy himself.

He was certain he could also kill his brother.

Sirius had betrayed him. He had done it not just once, when he had sold him to Dumbledore for whatever reward Dumbledore had promised, but before that more times than Regulus cared to count. It was not as if Regulus did not deserve to strike back. He had always kept his restraint, as he had promised himself that he would.

He had always said that he would not hurt his brother.

And he had promised, when he was accepted by the Dark Lord, that he would do something about his brother.

But he had now promised to kill him.

Regulus remembered the broken, mauled body of Rosier at his feet, and the way he had looked almost relieved as Regulus had raised his wand to kill the man.

It was not as if he had a choice now, in the matter of killing his brother.

He was marking time, the day afterwards, and took Adeline for a stroll around the lake after dinner in order to quiet his nerves. He took his potions examinations. That indicated that he was finished with his education, and yet it did not feel like an ending. It was somewhat anticlimactic. He took Adeline to the Astronomy Tower with some cakes and other sweet things from the house elves.

"I have something of importance to ask you," he said, when they had finished with their food and were sitting back, looking towards the stars. Sirius, the Dog Star, was shining bright above them. "Would you be amenable to moving our marriage forwards to this summer?"

"I shall need to consult with Mother as to whether the arrangements can be made in time," she said in reply. He face concealed a smile, but her eyes could not. "Will I continue to attend Hogwarts?"

"That is a matter for you to decide," he said. "But I should prefer to start a family of our own."

"I would prefer if I do not," she said. "I don't find it particularly pleasant, here. There is too much danger."

Regulus took both of her hands, as his hackles rose. "If anyone dares to threaten you, then you must tell me immediately. I will make sure they do not."

She looked him in the eye, her green eyes steady as could be. "It is not me that is in danger, Regulus. I am concerned for you far more than I am for myself."

"I know what I am doing, Adeline. Do not worry yourself on my account."

"My family do not side with your Dark Lord," she said. "And they do not side with the other side, either. We see the conflict."

"That is for your family." Regulus dropped her hands. He remained certain that he could love this girl, but he did not understand why she could not trust in his choices. It seemed that nobody could, except for the Dark Lord himself. Lucius always had. "I see no reason not to."

Except for the reason that he could end up on the floor of a darkened room, as Rosier had. But Regulus was cleverer than Rosier. Regulus would not make his mistakes.

"You ought to keep an eye on your friend Francis," said Adeline. "They do so want to recruit him, him and my brother both. He has two young daughters. He does not wish to be killed. Ottoline and Eugenia would miss him so."

"I do not wish to discuss this. Let us go back to the common room. We both need to write our mothers."

"We do," she said, rising. "Thank you for the lovely evening, Regulus. I do still think I can love you."

It would work out. He would make it all work out.

 _Hermione_

 _May 1979_

"Any news?" Hermione asked as Ginny stumbled through the door of the house, throwing off her jacket onto the pile at the base of the coat stand.

"None," Ginny sighed. "Remus is the same as yesterday. Dorcas is hopeful, but nothing's changed. They can't wake him, because movement will ruin the work they've done, but they won't know if there's any other problems until they do wake him." She threw herself down onto the sofa. "Going to take my broom out in a bit."

"It isn't your fault," said Luna, quietly. "Whatever you may be feeling at this moment, it is not your fault."

"I could have got there quicker, though."

"No," said Luna. "It is not your fault."

Ginny blinked twice, quickly, and sighed. "Thanks, Luna."

Luna returned to her book, Hermione to her knitting, Ginny to picking bits of skin from around her nails.

"Hermione?" she asked, after a few minutes of complete silence. "Can you teach me to knit?"

"To knit?" Hermione had not expected that. She directed the jumper she was making down onto her lap, the clacking of the metal needles quieting as she did so.

"Yeah. Mum tried to teach me, years ago. She never tried to teach the boys, so I assumed it was crappy girl stuff and didn't want to try. Turns out she did teach them, it was just Percy and Charlie were the only ones that cared. I'd like to try it again."

"I'm not actually very good," said Hermione, which as far as she was concerned was the truth. She'd got better since those hideous elf hats in fourth year, but some of her items were still really quite wonky.

"You know more than me. I can remember the charm to levitate the needles, but that's about it."

"The charm for that is _Wingardium Leviosa_. The first one we learnt at school."

Ginny looked confused. "Yeah, exactly. I know the charm to levitate the needles, like I said."

Hermione felt a growing dread in her stomach. It grew as she taught a crash course in knitting for Ginny, for Luna, and later for a baffled Sirius who had rolled in with a bag stuffed full with fish and chips for them all to share. It grew as they ate, all sat around laughing and watching Sirius and Ginny compete at Exploding Snap. It had been an enjoyable evening, even with Ginny occasionally staring vacantly out the window, as if waiting for an owl or a Patronus or something to arrive.

And Hermione had felt a shadow over it all.

She almost broke into her bedroom when she was able to escape upstairs, throwing her knitting down on the bed, and Tom Riddle's diary followed, evicted from her pocket with force. She wanted to sit down, too, but the bed was taken up with the evil bit of soul and the sharp, pointy sticks, so she went onto the floor. She lay there for a while, on her back, staring at the ceiling, the Muggle novel she'd borrowed from the town library next to her with the bookmark shoved in. It was due back tomorrow; she'd only half finished it.

It wasn't that Hermione wanted to carry that diary round, but it didn't feel right at home. She'd tried leaving it locked and warded in a box underneath her bed, and she'd tried carrying it in a bag with the protective spells on, but neither of them worked. She wanted to be able to see it, to feel it. To know that nothing could happen to it.

And it wasn't as if she could ask the others to help. Luna could hardly take it to work at the Ministry. And Ginny, well, she couldn't at all ask her to take it.

It occurred to her as she lay there, following the patterns of the swirls of Artex on the ceiling, that she hadn't thought of asking Sirius.

He was still downstairs, alone. Ginny had gone back out, off back to check on Remus, and Luna was asleep. She could stroll down there now, and ask him to look after the Horcrux for a little bit, because it was getting to her. There, she'd been honest with herself about that. The Horcrux was affecting her.

So why wasn't she asking?

"Hermione?" That was Sirius, knocking on the bedroom too. "You alright in there?"

"Come in." She waved her wand at the door, opening it for him before he had a chance to push it. "What's wrong?" He looked as if there was something.

"Ginny's feeling shit," he said, as he shut the door behind him. "So am I. He's my best friend, the last one I had left. I can't even do anything to help him." It wasn't necessary for him to say who.

"The other Sirius will be doing what he can," she said. She wasn't sure if that would help. They'd always skated around the issue of the other Sirius, and Hermione understood that. She'd never liked to think of her other selves, when she'd time travelled for school.

"Yeah." Sirius didn't look convinced, tapping his foot against the door, leaning back on it, trying to look nonchalant and as if he did not have a care in the world. She couldn't give him the Horcrux. "Why are you lying on the floor?"

"Evil on the bed." She pointed, letting him work it out for herself.

He moved around and sat next to her, kicking his legs out straight and putting his back up against the wall. He reached out for her hand, almost pulling away seconds before the two made contact. She'd learnt by now that it wasn't that he didn't like her. It was more that he didn't like himself, that was her theory, anyway.

"You're still carrying it round with you, then?"

"How did you know?" She hadn't said anything.

Sirius counted his reasons off on his fingers. "Firstly, you've got a bulge in your pocket the same shape as that diary half the time. Secondly, you carried the locket round when you looked for the Horcruxes before. I remember you telling me. Then, you're stressed all the time when you've got it. Snappy. Just, not very Hermione. Finally, I think you're too…" he looked at her, before he continued, "you're too keen for this to work to leave it lying around where it might go missing."

Hermione, despite herself, smiled.

"You were going to say that I'm a bit of a control freak."

"Was I?"

She'd wanted to do this without getting upset.

"Yeah. Ron would have."

"Well." Sirius seemed to weigh his words carefully. "I was."

"Oh."

He reached over, pulling her up so she was sitting opposite him.

"You're a massive control freak. I hated you for a bit, because of it. But you know that. And if you weren't then I don't think you'd have survived, from what you've told me. Oh, fucking hell. I might as well say it all, and probably get whacked for it. I love you. I didn't know if I did, but Luna and Ginny they talked to me, and well, I listened, and I'm shit at this, but I love you. I love you. And it's too soon to say it, but fuck this, I'm going to. I love you, Hermione."

"Really?" She had no idea what she wanted to say.

"Yeah." He stuck his hands into his jacket pocket, ignoring the blood coming from one of them. "I do."

"Oh, good," she said. "Because it's too soon, but I'm fairly sure I'm in love with you too."

"Caution," said Sirius. "I've always thought it's overrated."

"There we are," she said.

He suddenly developed an interest in the spider walking along the wall behind her. "What do we do now?"

"In my experience, we go fight a megalomaniac madman. Or that's what I did last time I told someone I loved them." That wasn't helpful.

"I've never said it before."

"Oh. Sorry. I'm fairly sure what I said was insensitive, but, well, I had told you about Ron…" She petered out, and decided to stop being so fucking awkward.

Instead, she reached in and kissed him. It seemed to cover nicely what she had been trying to say, a mixture of the phrase 'I love you too', the apology for having brought up Ron, and just everything else that she really quite wanted to say to him now. Mostly an apology, once again, for her behaviour over the summer and the autumn, and a promise that she wouldn't screw this up if she could possibly help it.

He seemed to understand.

"I want you to come with me," he said. "Dunno if I want to, but there's something I want to show you."

He took her hand, and she followed him, along the slightly dirty carpet. They stopped under the loft hatch, and he pulled his wand out of his pocket, muttering spells at the ceiling. His ladder slowly curled its way to the floor, elegant black iron railings and everything.

"You've got a spiral staircase?" she asked. She wanted to laugh, whether basset of the absurdity of the ladder or because it was as pretentious as anything, she didn't know.

"It sort of came out that way." He shrugged. "You can take the pureblood out of the fancy house, but…"

"Grimmauld Place was not fancy," she said.

"Not after I'd left it to moulder nicely, no. But you've seen it now, as my mother intended for it to be."

"But it isn't fancy," she reiterated. "It's grand. Imposing. Slightly scary, but maybe that's just because I know what they're all capable of." She would have continued, but the pressure of his hand squeezing hers stopped her.

"Thought you were coming up?" he said, with a little glint in his eye.

They climbed the ladder, Hermione first, awkwardly because they were still holding hands. Theirs was a wartime romance, but the handholding reminded her of earlier, happier times. The slightly furtive hand holding with Victor, before they had really discovered loss. The more confident hand holding with Ron, after they were free of war.

It was innocent. Nice. Calming.

His room was not what she had expected. He'd transformed the loft into something really rather special, all red and gold and fabric and books. There were pictures, too, and it took her awhile before she realised that he had drawn them. One of Ginny, her hair long, laughing at something. A couple of Luna, and they captured her exactly. Not her look, although that was also right, but the essence of the way she held herself, the way she was Luna. A Remus, a James, even one of what she had to assume was Harry as a baby, from memory.

And more of Hermione. A few portraits, a couple of her in action, one that was a simple sketch of her and Sirius together.

"Oh, those," he said, seeing what she was looking at. "If it makes them less creepy, the ones of you are from after we'd stopped arguing all the time. Earliest is Christmastime. I started drawing again when I wasn't able to do much."

She smiled. "I suppose there's a fine line between a romantic gesture and incredibly creepy."

"Something like that."

His grey eyes met hers, and he sat on the edge of the bed gesturing to her to sit down next to him. She did, and he pulled her closer, his arms around her and his head snuggled into her neck. It was safe here, she realised. The darkness of the Horcrux had lifted, and she felt as though she was safe.

"I don't know how to get the cup, with Bellatrix gone."

"I've been thinking about that," said Sirius.

Hermione was pleased about that. She'd been drawing a blank; Bellatrix had been her best hope. Rodolphus clearly had no interest in any affairs other than murdering and gambling, and Rabastan was not somebody she wanted to get any closer to than she already had. Bellatrix, if cruel and insane, seemed to care about family. She'd shown more of an interest in Lyra than Hermione had been comfortable with, the last time she had paid a visit to Walburga.

Sirius continued. "We don't even know if it's been made yet," he said. "You said Voldy reserved the process for important deaths, right? He hasn't killed alone for ages, we don't think. Bellatrix didn't marry until a couple of years ago, so she wouldn't have placed it in the Lestrange vault until then. And he hasn't killed alone as far as we can tell since before then. But at the beginning of 1980, he kills Dorcas, and he does it alone. Personally. Don't you think it's likely he makes the Horcrux then?"

"Is she significant enough, though?" mused Hermione, her brain whirring. "I can't remember what she does."

"She was on the verge of discovering something," said Sirius. "I don't know much about it. Remus was doing some of the work, but he wasn't able to tell us much. He'd just done the early research, I think. And she'd made a bit of a name for herself, fighting Voldemort. I think he would have wanted to have taken her down. She was considered to be the second in command of the Order, with Moody busy with Auror work."

"But we're messing with things so much," said Hermione. "It might not happen like that."

"Do you have doubts?" he asked. "Do you regret what we're doing?"

She thought about that. Her truthful answer was no, that was the first thing her mind jumped to. Perhaps she would do it better, if she did it again, but that was true of everything, wasn't it?

"No," she said. It wasn't the first time he'd asked this question. It wasn't the first time she'd given that answer. It was the first time she was certain it was true.

"I think it'll happen," he said. "What do you think? Do you think he's made the cup a Horcrux?"

"I don't know," she said. Two months ago, that would have made her panic, she was certain of it. She'd have driven herself into a mess of plans, trying to work out all the possible scenarios. But she wasn't now.

"We'll work it out," he said. "We will."

She believed him.

"The Horcrux," she said. "It's downstairs on my bed."

"I get a girl in my room," he said, "and the thing she wants to talk about is another man. Okay, he's a mass murderer and a megalomaniac, and it's his soul, but you know, makes a boy feel loved."

"I do love you," she said. Another thing that she was certain was true. She didn't know why, or how, or when exactly it had happened, but maybe you never did.

"I'm going to look after the diary for a bit," he said. "You need a break from it."

She didn't argue that.

"And I love you too," he said, as he went to the trapdoor. "And when I get back, I'm going to show you how much." His dark hair fell over his face as he began to climb down, hiding the smile that suggested he could not believe his luck.

 **a/n:** **Thanks to Rachael for her, as usual, excellent beta work.**

 **Thanks also to my friend who helped me work through some of the conversation between Regulus and Dumbledore in this chapter. The way young men joined the Death Eaters can be likened to a type of radicalisation, which he pointed out, and this is an attempt to explore how authority figures can actually make things worse and drive people further into radicalisation if they don't know how to handle it. I don't hate Dumbledore, in particular, but I do think from what we saw in canon he handled this badly. I hope I've done the topic at least a little bit of justice/not screwed it up really badly.**


	41. Chapter 41: The Burrow

**Chapter Forty One: The Burrow**

 _Sirius_

 _May 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

He sat, reading, on the seafront, his book charmed to appear like a Muggle motorcycle maintenance manual rather than a complicated and slightly archaic text on wizarding curse breaking. When it had occurred to him that he should disguise the book, he realised that it was the only Muggle book he knew they name of.

Luna sat next to him, her own faintly mouldering tome disguised as a magazine entitled Cosmopolitan. It had a photograph of a woman on the front, dressed in the fashions of the day and glowering into the camera in what Sirius assumed was supposed to be a sexy fashion. It looked an awful lot like his old posters in his room at Grimmauld Place, except classier.

"Is that even a real magazine?" he asked, as he perused the articles it advertised on the front. They mostly seemed to be advising women how to have sex.

"It is," said Luna. "It is somewhat enlightening."

"You've read it?"

"It is still in production in the time we are from. And no, the content of the articles have not changed considerably."

Sirius shook his head. He'd assumed it was only blokes who were that level of obsessed with shagging.

"I don't understand women," he said. "I reckon I get this, though." He indicated his own book, with a nod. Luna shut her magazine.

"I am glad. We ought to go today, really. If you believe we are ready. Get it done."

Sirius thought that was a good idea. The longer they left the place half-defended, the more they were at risk of being discovered.

He walked home the long way with Luna, neither of them very keen on going into the house. He hadn't asked why she wasn't, and he was only half-certain that he knew why he didn't want to.

"D'you want to stop for ice-cream?" he asked her. "I think most of the places on the seafront have opened up for the summer, now."

"That sounds nice," said Luna.

They were halfway through a cone of chocolate ice-cream (for Sirius, despite the fact that he found chocolate irritated his stomach) and a little tub of rum and raisin (for Luna) when she asked the question.

"Why is it that you don't like being at home?"

"Dunno," was his first answer, and not a very good one. "I don't like it."

"Hermione isn't there much," said Luna. "Neither is Ginny."

"Yeah, but you are."

"Without wanting to offend you, which I am sure that I will not, we are not who the other wishes to spend our time with."

"I like spending time with you," said Sirius, rather fruitlessly, because essentially Luna was right, and they both knew it.

"And I you," she replied. "But you miss Hermione."

"Yeah."

"You're feeling left out again."

"Yeah."

"It is, what was the phrase you have used before? A shower of shit?"

"Luna!" Sirius laughed at that. "I didn't know you swore."

"Words are words. I've never understood why those ones are considered to be more offensive."

"Dunno. Ask my mother. Actually, don't. She'd hate you." Sirius sighed. He'd actually pay good gold to see Luna argue with his mother, but it wasn't something he wanted to put Luna through. Actually, he wasn't sure that she'd mind. Or care. "I think my mother likes Hermione."

He'd asked. Hermione had never been shouted at by Walburga, or hit, or thrown out to fend for herself. She seemed to treat Hermione the way she treated Regulus, even without the little tests that both of them had been given.

"Your mother likes Lyra Black. It is an important distinction. She doesn't like Hermione, she doesn't know her from a Hippogriff."

"No feathers," said Sirius. "No beak. It's fairly easy to tell the difference, I'd say."

Luna nodded, sagely. "No hooves."

They lapsed into silence. Luna climbed the railing that separated the raised walkway from the beach below, and, in a fit of something, even though he didn't much like these railings, Sirius did too. He took the last few bites of his ice cream as they sat up on the cold, thin metal rails. Luna's tub was empty, and she looked out at the sea.

No, she wasn't. She was looking at the couples, holding hands.

"Shit," said Sirius, in a moment of realisation.

Luna looked around at him. "Hermione doesn't like them more than she likes you, you do know that."

It wasn't that, although his chest felt a little warmer at the fact that she had said it. No. It was something entirely different.

"Ginny," he said. "You said, ages ago, that you liked girls. And that the girl you loved didn't like you back, and you said I knew them."

"Ah," said Luna, and she turned away again. It wasn't denial.

"I'm sorry. It must be difficult."

"It is what it is."

"You've spent nearly a year dealing with my shit," he said. "Give me a chance to deal with some of yours, yeah?" He had a sudden moment of not being sure that it had been the right thing to say. "Well, you don't have to. Only if you want to. But you don't have to be the one who copes."

"You won't tell her?"

"Course not."

"I had always supposed you would work it out, sooner or later. You cannot have survived as long as you did without being at least somewhat observant."

"I'm quick at spotting danger. Shit at this sort of, you know, people stuff." He waved his hand vaguely in the distance between the two of them, trying to indicate that he meant relationships and friendships and everything else of that sort. Siblings.

Neither of them said anything after that, but Luna reached for his hand and gave it a little squeeze. Sirius decided he was finally learning something about dealing with upset women, after all.

They went up to the old Gaunt shack, after that, and managed to remove another five curses that had been layered onto the building. Sirius did the fiddly-wand work, while Luna read out the stages from the notepad they'd prepared in advance. The weather had improved dramatically from their previous visits, and Sirius found himself lying on the grass in the early-afternoon sunshine, digging a small hole in the ground to ascertain whether Voldemort had, in his infinite fucking wisdom, decided to curse the foundations as well as the building.

He had.

Hardly surprising, when you thought about his general modus operandi, Sirius thought. The man at least acted consistently, whatever else you said about him.

Which was, in Sirius' case, mainly a lot of muttered swear words and more than a couple of half-baked death threats.

At least he'd checked that book again, before coming. Sirius didn't think he'd be dead if he hadn't, but he'd certainly not be in very good shape.

Luna sat serenely halfway up a tree, flicking through a book on curses, while Sirius sweated it out on the ground. His t-shirt was sticking to his back, and he could have done with a hair bobble right about now. On the positive side, they were almost done. If he could untangle whatever this was in the foundations, they'd be there. He and Luna would have contributed. They'd have another Horcrux.

He sat up.

"Some sort of Entrail-Expelling Curse," he said to Luna, "anchored into the stones. If we cross this line, we'll end up with our small intestine somewhere over there," he pointed, "and your liver somewhere over there." He indicated a small copse of trees with his second point. "Or something. It's nasty, anyway."

"Does not sound pleasant," said Luna, with the tone and style of someone who was discussing the unseasonably warm springtime. "Can you disable it?"

"Probably. Should I?"

"I can't see why not."

"Okay."

He pointed his wand back at the edges of the shack. If he did this, they'd have broken all the curses Voldemort had set, in a little over a month. They'd have a Horcrux. And unlike Albus Dumbledore, almost twenty years later, they knew not to stick it straight on their hand, however tempting it might be.

Still, the Resurrection Stone, as Sirius knew it to be thanks to Hermione, held little appeal. The 1996 Sirius would have put it on, if he'd know what it was. He would not have delayed for a second, even.

But everyone he loved was alive, now. He had a plan, and he was going to keep it that way.

Twenty minutes of muttering and wand pointing and the occasional angry swear word later, he thought he'd done it all.

"We're clear," he said. "I think."

"I trust you," said Luna.

"More fool you," said Sirius. He prodded at the air once more with his wand; the test he'd learnt from one of their early books on curse breaking was suggesting the air was entirely clear of anything dangerous. Did he trust it? He wasn't sure.

He took a step forward, then another, and then his hand connected with the door. The only thing that happened was that the tarnished bronze doorknob fell off into his hand, and the door stayed resolutely shut. It seemed to be to do with age and bad workmanship, rather than the presence of anything dangerous.

"You've not exploded, yet," said Luna.

Sirius chuckled. "Yet, being the operative word." He threw the doorknob aside, and pushed at the door with both hands. When that didn't yield, and neither did a charm, he decided to cause an explosion of his own. He stepped back three paces. " _Reducto!"_

The door exploded, along with half of the front wall.

"That is one way," said Luna.

The room was old, with ornate, half-destroyed furniture and the remains of a tiny kitchen off to one side. Three doors lined the wall next to the kitchen, the middle with the body of an old, very much dead, snake nailed to it. The snake smelt, the whole room stank of festering food and dirty furniture and years of neglect.

In the centre sat a golden plinth, decorated with runes and bearing the signs of enchantments. None of them were dangerous, though, Sirius detected. It was clear that Voldemort had not expected anyone to come here, and that if they had they would have been destroyed by his charms.

Ha. They'd beaten Voldemort. Just once, in a pretty small way, but still. They'd beaten the fucker.

"I expect Voldemort will notice that if he were to come by," said Luna. She tiptoed over to join Sirius in the rubble, with their quarry in plain sight. "You know, if I was a dark lord, I would protect my Horcruxes with Muggle explosives. I watched a film once where man used some explosives to try and rob some people in tower at Christmas. I do not know if the fact that it was at Christmas is important. But you would not look for Muggle explosives, would you, if you were a wizard?"

Not for the first time, Sirius made a mental note to never anger Luna. Or allow her to become a dark lord. She would be far more dangerous than Voldemort. She was entirely unpredictable.

"No," he said. "I wouldn't."

"There you are. Do you think we are safe to levitate it? I don't think touching it would be wise, do you?"

"Definitely not. I brought a bag." He offered it to her. "It's charmed to hopefully negate anything nasty that's on it, and it obviously prevents us from touching it."

He'd made one for Hermione, too, so she could carry that bloody diary around as much as she wanted to, and it ought to prevent the worst of its effects. If he'd done it right, of course. He hadn't really known what he was doing. He never did.

Luna levitated the ring into the bag, then passed it to Sirius. He placed it into his pocket, and they stood in the centre of the room. It was a funny feeling, Voldemort's soul in his pocket. Unusual. But then, who wandered around with half of somebody else's soul in their pocket, anyway? Probably somebody you wouldn't want to trust. It was a bloody weird thing to do.

It was also bloody weird to leave bits of your soul dotted around the country, but there you were. Careless, almost. Like you wanted someone to prove that they were worthy to kill you by going on some kind of fucking macabre treasure hunt.

"He's a dick, isn't he?" said Sirius, nodding his head at the plinth. One hand sat on the bag that the ring was in, the other held his wand. "He had to kill someone for this."

"His father," said Luna. "He killed his father when he was sixteen years old."

"That makes it seem somehow more reasonable."

And then, before Luna could say something that would either be sympathy or a rebuke, they were interrupted by a silvery horse swirling into being next to them. With it's very appearance, it collapsed their companionable little space and suddenly struck a heavy feeling of dread into Sirius' stomach.

"They're attacking the Weasley's. Order's going to be there, but…" Ginny's voice, high and terrified, petered out at that point, and Sirius' stomach now felt it was in a knot.

There was no reason to ask who 'they' were. He looked at Luna, and Luna looked at him, and simultaneously they nodded.

"Polyjuice," said Luna. "We ought to."

"Yeah." That was the agreement, that if any of them were going to things they shouldn't know about, they'd use Polyjuice and stay out of the way as much as they could. Try not to get killed or captured, or worse, recognised for very much not being meant to be there. It was harder, now, now that they could no longer plan in advance.

With trembling hands, Luna produced two vials of Polyjuice Potion from her rucksack, and a handful of little potions bottles that contained hairs from unsuspecting Muggles. She read the labels, selected two, and put them into the potion.

"This assumes that you wish to stay male," she said, handing one to Sirius.

He just drank, and once they had resumed their disguised forms she took his elbow and they Apparated.

They arrived into carnage. There was no way of telling if Hermione was there, or where she was if she was indeed present but they could see Ginny, fighting a masked Death Eater with black, close-cut curls. Peter Pettigrew too, holding his own against a Death Eater almost as short as he was, and James, standing on top of the shed and raining down spells while dodging the inevitable storm of curses coming back his way. Moody, Dorcas, Caradoc Dearborn, Marlene, little Edgar Bones, half the Order, too.

The left hand side of the house was on fire, the flames curling around the building as if directed by a human hand. Sirius knew that fire.

"I'm going inside," he said.

"Right behind you."

"No need." The hand of a witch he did not recognise was on his shoulder, dark skinned and tiny with a huge pair of glasses perched on her nose. A silver locket peeped out from her robes. That was how he recognised her; it was the locket he had given Hermione on her birthday so many months before.

"But Molly, Arthur, the kids!" he said.

"I've sent Gideon and Fabian in," said Hermione. "They'll trust them. What if they wouldn't leave with us?" They'd had that problem recently.

Sirius saw his own former self dart around the corner, tailed by two masked figures.

"That's me," said Sirius. "I was never here, the first time."

"Well," said Luna. "It was not as though this happened."

Sirius stole a look at Hermione, who stood looking on at the scene with an entirely imperceptible look on her face. He put his arm around her shoulders, and her hand rose to the locket around her neck.

"Molly's about to become pregnant with Ron," she said. "Do you think she will be?"

An explosion rocked the shed, and with a whoosh of flame a piece of the roof landed inches away from the three of them. Sirius started forward, just a foot or two, before he saw James pop up from the wreckage, laughing. He was saying something, something mocking and loud, and although they could not hear the words or see the Death Eater's face behind his mask, there was no mistaking the angry jerk of his arm back.

And to Sirius' surprise it was not him that was throwing themselves between the wand of the Death Eater and James Potter, but Hermione.

" _Bombarda! Reducto! Stupefy!"_ she screamed, hurling offensive spell after offensive spell at the Death Eater. He flew back, the mask flying too, and it was one Sirius did not recognise as important, some Burke or Bole or Borgin or some other ridiculous name from the depths of his past. It was Hermione that was important, now, as several others of the masked lot noticed the commotion and started towards them.

Beside him Luna ran, and Ginny from the opposite side of the garden, having taken advantage of the distraction of her opponent to send him flying backwards. They stood together, the four of them and James Potter, all battling as hard as they could over the crackling of the flames licking The Burrow. Destroying The Burrow.

"Phil!" That was James. "Moody's signalling to get out!"

"You lot," said Ginny, with a wink that James didn't see, "I don't know who you are, but I'd get as far away from here as you can!"

The Death Eaters were Disapparating, the fight breaking up with no warning, which meant one of three things in Sirius' rather significant experience. The targets had escaped, the targets were dead, or there were too many opponents on scene.

Sirius took Hermione's hand, and she took Luna's, and he felt the jerk behind his navel that would sweep them away.

He was temporarily disoriented by their landing place. They were on a beach, but it was not their beach. No clifftops and vernacular railway, just a long, sloping, sandy beach leading towards a small hamlet set back from the sea, the sand slowly disappearing into grass and scrubland rather than ending up against a concrete walkway and a wall of stone.

Luna, beside them, looked simply curious, crouching down and exploring the shells and stones littering the beach. Sirius left her there, and walked towards Hermione, standing a short distance away with her head raised almost in defiance. At some point she had lost the bobble that had secured her plait, and the strands of it were beginning to unravel down her back.

"Hermione," he said.

"I had to save James," she said. "We can't lose Harry. What if we've lost Ron?"

"We won't have," he said. "Gideon and Fabian will have got Molly and Arthur and the children to safety. And the rest of the Order. You said yourself, they were in there. They'd never leave their family behind."

"Harry was my family," she said. "Ron too, but it was different. Harry, neither of us had anyone related to us by blood, any more. Well, I think he'd spoken on the phone to his cousin, once. He apparently is really sorry. Wants Harry's forgiveness. Harry will give it to him, of course, because that's what Harry's like."

"Hermione."

"Have we fucked everything up?"

"I don't think so."

"Easy for you to say. We're doing what you wanted."

"One of my best friends is currently lying unconscious because of what we've been up to."

Hermione's gaze dropped. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"I am going to go over here," came Luna's voice. "You two need your time. Perhaps I shall come home tonight. Sirius, do not forget your pocket."

"Your pocket?" asked Hermione.

"I'd forgotten," he said. He pulled out the little bag, and handed it to Hermione. "Don't put your hand in," he said. "Open it with magic."

She did so with a wave of her wand, and lit the end of it so as to better see inside the bag. Sirius knew what she'd see, the tarnished gold and black ring sitting inside the velvet bag.

"Is that?"

"Yeah."

She carefully drew the drawstring, and put it back into his pocket. A second later, to ensure it was safe, perhaps, she threw her arms around him.

"You did it!"

"Me and Luna did it." He might have done the spellwork, but he couldn't have done it without her.

"I'm worried I'm going to regret this," she said. "If Ron doesn't exist. We've already uncreated Draco Malfoy. I don't even like Malfoy! I felt sorry for him, yes, but I've never liked him, I don't like him, I won't ever like him! I can't even get my tenses right, I don't even know where I stand!"

The sun was setting below the horizon, the air around them darkening. Sirius tried to brush his hair from his face. It wouldn't stay.

"Don't," he said. "Just don't. Ron will be fine. Ron will still be there, when you go back." He felt as if something had cracked inside him when he said that.

"Ron," she said. "I just don't want him to not be there. Him and Harry. They were my friends. My first friends." Her eyes went up again, making contact with his, and they were entirely filled with sadness. "I don't know if we even can go back."

"There's often a way, to do even the most improbable things." He thought of how they had ended up here in the first place. How they had two Horcruxes, even if they had no other plan beyond the vaguest. Get the locket. Save Regulus. Diadem. Cup, check status of, and destroy. Kill Voldemort.

"If we could go back," she asked, "would you come?"

"I don't know if I can. James, when I was dead, said I couldn't go past my death. I don't know whether that applies with a Time-Turner, or anything else, or whether it was just at that time."

"Oh," she said. "I'd want you to come back, if you could."

"Are you going back?"

"I don't know." She looked as though she was about to cry. "I don't know if I could, even if I can, physically. Do you know what I mean? It's going to be different. And I don't know how much."

"And you don't like not knowing things."

She bristled, slightly. "No," she admitted. "I don't."

"We'll get home, and we'll ask Ginny what happened to Molly and Arthur and the boys. I'd send her a Patronus, but she'll still be at Headquarters, I think. Then we'll do some more planning. Maybe read some more books on time magic. Maybe there's a precedent for my situation, somewhere."

Hermione smiled. "I never knew you enjoyed research."

He did a slightly disgusted face, exaggerated because he wanted to see more of her smile. "I don't. I love you. Books are just a hazard of having you around."

Ginny's Patronus rolled in, once again, gently galloping across the sand. The feeling of dread was only slightly less, this time. It could be informing them of a death.

"They're all fine. Don't reply, you'll fuck my cover. But thank Merlin and all the stars, they're fine."

"See?" said Sirius. "We might have fucked up a few things, but not this."

They stood there, in one another's arms, until the sky had darkened completely and the stars were beginning to come out. He would not have ever let go, if it had been possible to conduct life this way. Fifteen years with little to no human contact, he had lived. Azkaban, and then after that, a hug from Harry and the occasional one from Remus.

Nothing like this. Nothing like the feel of Hermione's arms. Nothing that reminded him that he was still a man, and not a number in a cell, disappearing a little further into the rock and the darkness and the despair a little more every day.

Azkaban would never leave him. But he could leave it.

Sirius Black had never intended to marry anyone. Never intended to subject them to his family. But Hermione had done that, already, and she still appeared to love him.

Perhaps he would be forced to change that rule of his.

 _Remus_

 _June 1979, Order Headquarters, North Wales_

He did not know where he was, that was what Remus realised. This was not his bedroom.

It also was not Hogwarts.

And he wasn't outside, so he hadn't been killing and destroying anyone last night.

And it wasn't the Shrieking Shack, either, or his parents' basement. So it most likely had not been a full moon, at all.

He did feel slightly better for having established where he wasn't.

He'd been fighting Malfoy. Malfoy. The blasts of light and the shouts and the faces of those Muggles. Remus went to scrabble for his wand, but his arms wouldn't move, and he was going to fucking die here, wasn't he.

"Ah, hello, you're awake, then."

Dorcas.

Order Headquarters.

He stopped trying to flail and attempted to reply. He made a series of grunting noises and then a gurgle, instead.

"Take your time, take your time."

Dorcas' face swam into view as she leant over him with her wand outstretched. Her dark hair was clipped back from her face as she waved the wand over his body, her eyebrows furrowed neatly as she understood whatever it was the charms were telling him. Remus had never had much of a head for those things, but she seemed to know what she was doing.

"Better." That was Dorcas' only proclamation, before she turned away from him. He attempted to turn his neck to follow her, but met resistance and pain and so he gave up quickly. He'd learnt about not pushing himself, not when he didn't have to.

"Take this." She was back with a small, glass bottle, tinted red so that the potion inside was difficult to identify. "It isn't poison."

Remus supposed that was what a poisoner would say.

He attempted to sit upright, a movement also blocked by his body. Dorcas hauled him up by his armpits instead, arranging pillows until he was propped upright in the narrow, cast-iron bed. She mostly tipped the potion down his throat. Although Remus discovered that he could use his arms, he wasn't sure Dorcas really wanted him to.

"What's the last thing you remember?" She'd pulled up a chair alongside, and leant forwards, watching his reactions closely.

"Fight," he said. "Thought I was there. For a moment. Shit. How's Phil?"

"Not a scratch," said Dorcas, shaking her head. "It's like someone's been feeding her Felix Felicis before fights. She never gets harmed." She shrugged. "Though, your first question should have been, how am I? And I'll answer it. You're a mess, Lupin. Thought you wouldn't make it, at one point."

Remus shuffled under the thick duvet. The fight, with the flashes and the bangs and the danger, hadn't been more than a few hours ago, had it?

"How long was I out?"

"Almost three weeks."

"Shit."

"If you weren't my only patient, I'd have you for swearing in my hospital."

"S'not a hospital. Sick room."

"You do all the Healing for all the scrapes you lot get yourself into, all the times you get yourself tortured or maimed or half killed, you deal with the stress of someone almost dying every few days, you decide what it's called."

Remus supposed she had a point.

"Sorry."

"Eh," she said. "I still think I've come off better than you, this time. Anyway. You're on the mend. I think you'll have lasting damage in that left leg. Heart palpitations, occasionally, but they should wear off within a year. We'll have to stuff you full of potions before tomorrow's full moon, but there you are. I'm just pleased you've woken for it. You're going to have a wash, now. You stink, you've got blood we couldn't clean magically, and your girlfriend's desperate to see you."

"Not like this."

"No, I couldn't agree more. Sirius is here, somewhere. He's going to stick you in the bath."

Remus groaned.

"Can't you?"

"Don't let your girlfriend hear you say that. Senior Healers don't bathe patients, and besides, I've seen enough naked men to last me a lifetime."

"Sirius will…"

"Sirius saw you when you came in. If he makes any stupid jokes, I'll put him on cleaning duty. Non-magical."

"Who's making stupid jokes?" Sirius' head poked itself through the gap in the door, before the door opened on him and he mostly fell through the doorway. Dorcas flicked her wand, and he stopped a handful of inches from the ground, almost horizontal.

"Tie your bootlaces," she said, as he struggled upright, pulling his jacket back onto himself. "I suppose I should be glad you're at least you're wearing shoes. And you're the one not making any jokes. Take Remus to the bath."

"Levitate, carry, or help with walking?" Sirius asked Remus, choosing probably wisely to ignore Dorcas. She might be small, bookish and soft-spoken, but both of them had seen what she was capable of in a fight. She'd hex Sirius over taking any of his shit, and had done before.

"Walking."

Sirius nodded. "Thought as much. You're too bloody stubborn." They hobbled out of the room together once Sirius had helped him from the bed, and Sirius waited until Dorcas was out of earshot before he spoke again. "Got loads of good jokes, too. Thought about filling the bath with rubber ducks. Philomena bought me one, and I've duplicated it to try and work out how it's made. It squeaks. And there's no magic."

"They're squeakers made out of rubber," said Remus. "Honestly. How many did you make?"

"Haven't counted. Prongs reckons 700. Prongs massively exaggerates. S'ok. I gave a load of them to Andromeda's little girl. And don't worry," said Sirius, changing tack. "Most the blood isn't yours. Phil killed Malfoy, the great dirty bastard. Thinking of writing to Narcissa to congratulate her on her freedom from old blondie, but I bet that's a big breach of fucking etiquette. I asked Mrs. Potter, and she said not to, anyway."

Remus listened to Sirius' inane chatter as he got himself into the bath, firmly avoiding Sirius' offers of help. He could do this. He wanted that Death Eater blood off him as much as anyone would. Sirius was prattling on about James and Lily's wedding now. Some drama with Petunia. Remus thought she was Lily's sister. His brain was filled with as much dust as the Shrieking Shack.

"What happened to the others?" he asked, and Sirius blinked several times in response. The t-shirt he was wearing was far too small, Remus decided.

"The others? Oh, the fight. Shit. Yeah. Phil's fine. Gideon's fine. Fabian's had a trip to St Mungo's. I mean, he's fine, but he's got a bit of residual curse damage. He's out now, only needed a few days. You were the worst one."

"But I can't go to St Mungo's."

Sirius leant forwards, placing his elbows onto his knees. "Dorcas knows what she's doing."

"I know. I trust her." He'd seen Dorcas pull Marlene back from near death, and sort out James' arm after he'd nearly lost it, and prevent Caradoc dying of some obscure poison. She knew what she was doing. He didn't have a problem with her treating him.

"Still, you're awake now," said Sirius, trying to sound upbeat and ultimately failing. "Nobody died. 'Cept Malfoy, and nobody cares about that. Oh, yeah. Bella and her husband are in Ministry custody. Trial's next month. Crouch is going spare, from what Peter says, says it isn't enough time to get the case together. I think he's losing it, frankly. They've done enough, got enough witnesses. He just can't bear the idea of them getting away, however slim."

"Witnesses might be too scared," said Remus. He shuddered. Anyone who stood up on that dock to give evidence against the Lestranges would find themselves an instant target by every other Death Eater at large, but most especially their relatives. Rabastan Lestrange. And, although Remus wouldn't say it out loud, Sirius' brother Regulus.

"Phil's already said she'll speak. And Gideon and Fabian. I expect they'll ask you, too, when they can track you down. We've told them you've gone abroad."

"I thought we weren't meant to be there?"

"Well, Bella's memories say you were."

"Yeah." He thought, watching the now muddy-brown water swish around his body. "Philomena can't testify. It's too dangerous."

"She won't like it if you say that. Word of advice. Never tell a witch they can't do something." Sirius rubbed his arm reflexively, the spot Remus knew he'd been cursed by a Hufflepuff in first year when he'd tried to say that girls weren't any good as Beaters. Remus doubted there was even a mark. It had been a very mild curse.

"I just don't…"

Sirius cut him off. "She's her own woman, you know. Oh, and she'll be here soon. I let her know you were awake while you were pissing about washing."

"She's outside."

It was undeniably Philomena's voice.

"She can hear everything, by the way."

Ah. Shit.

"I'll be in the kitchen."

He heard the sound of footsteps retreating, and briefly questioned why he had not heard them arrive. How long had she been standing there.

"You're in the doghouse, then." Sirius was inspecting his own arm, which sported a half-healed cut.

"Shack," corrected Remus. "You're the dog, you belong in the doghouse." The old joke, which had never been very funny to begin with, still won a grin from Sirius.

"True enough."

"Where'd you get that?"

"Weasley place. There was a whole big fight. We reckon they were looking for revenge over Malfoy's death, and Bella and Rodolphus being caught. They heard someone call Philomena a Prewett, and recognised Gideon and Fabian. Couldn't find any genuine Prewetts, well nobody knows where Phil lives, do they, and Fabian and Gid are so well hidden, so they went for the next best thing. Or that's what our sources say."

He looked tired, as he continued. "They tried to scare Fabian and Gideon's sister Molly and her kids. Arthur, that's her husband, was at work. Whole big shit show, nobody died, though." He shrugged, as if it was no big deal, given that nobody had died.

"Is she alright?"

"Molly Weasley? Fine. Terrified. You know. She's staying with an aunt whose driving her batty. Arthur's trying to join the Order, and she's close to killing him herself. Their oldest two kids have taken to playing Order and the Death Eaters. It's all a disaster, isn't it, but no more than usual."

Remus did not know when they had become so hardened to this. That an attack where nobody died was not a terrible thing, because there had been an attack, but warranted no emotion. He supposed it had started when Benji had died. They'd assumed that they were all invincible, until then, and they had quickly had that particular belief taken away. But you couldn't stop to think about that. If you did, you'd lose your nerve. So you kept going, and you pretended that you were unable to die.

He had not noticed, until he had felt the absence of that feeling the night that they had revealed his lycanthropy on air. They were disguised, but some would have recognised. Especially given that Snape would have betrayed his secret to the Death Eaters, first chance he got.

No, they were not invincible. They never had been.

"Sirius?" he asked. "Did you think I was going to die?"

The indifferent face was a facade, Remus realised, when it disappeared from Sirius' face the instant that Remus asked his question.

"Shit, Remus, why would you ask that? Yeah, we did. James was convinced. Peter said he didn't think you would. I did, though I hoped I was wrong. You looked awful. I got you here, and you were like you were dead, you know."

"Sorry." His best friend's face was showing the echoes of what he must have felt, that night, and Remus felt as though he should never have asked.

"No, you should know, really. It was you that it was happening to."

"Do you ever think one of us might die?"

The question hung between them for a while. Remus wasn't sure what his own answer would be, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear Sirius' either.

No, he did know. He might not want to think about it in the daytime, but he had been. And he had been at night, those hours between going to bed and finally falling asleep. They all knew Peter did, with his nightmares and his ragged breath every time a Patronus came in the room or the Daily Prophet arrived in the morning. And he was sure James did. After that incident on the radio, he knew James worried about it. He'd seen him, roaming in the house at all hours of the day and night, never sleeping, never able to settle to a task. Floo calling Lily at random times, to check in.

"Yeah." Sirius looked as though he might cry. "All the fucking time."

"Me too. Since Christmas, at least."

"Since Benji."

"I want to get out of the bath now."

Sirius turned away from Remus, and Remus was sure he saw his friend wipe his eyes on the hem of his t-shirt. He turned back.

"Alright. How d'you want to do this? Can you get yourself up, or do you need me to help?"

At any other time, someone would have pointed out the innuendo, and they'd all have laughed, and taken the piss out of whoever said it. Both of them ignored this one.

Clean and dry and with half a cauldron of potions tipped into him by Dorcas, Remus made his way to the kitchen. Philomena was talking to Lily, their differing shades of red hair shimmering softly in the candlelight and their heads close together. They spoke in whispers, and from the door Remus couldn't make out a word of it.

"Phil," he said.

"Remus!" She tipped her chair as she ran to greet him, stopping inches short of where he was. "Should I?" she asked. He felt the scabbed but still sore mark along his neck.

"Yes."

And she hugged him. He felt anger, yes, in that hug, and concern and relief but something else, too. Something that he did not dare to bring up.

"I'm so glad you're alright!"

"So am I." The words fell out, more than he chose to say them, but it was the truth.

She leant up and kissed him, and in the background he heard a gasp (Lily, most likely) and a round of applause (almost certainly not Lily).

"He's back in the game, boys and girls, he's back in the game." James.

"Shhh! James!" Peter. "That was just offensive. Come up with some decent heckles, mate. You're defacing the name of Marauder."

"Defacing means writing on it, stupid. Defenestrate, that's what you're looking for." James was also wrong.

"Defenestration is the act of throwing somebody from a window," said Lily. "Merlin's beard, for a load of supposed master pranksters, you lot aren't very clever."

She went to the door, and beckoned at James and Peter.

"Come on. We're going to go and find Sirius, remember?"

"No we're not," said James. "We talked to Sirius less than an hour ago."

"James!" said Peter, again. "Fucking get out, you bastard!"

James went a bit pink.

"Fine." He stalked out of the room after Lily, and Peter brought up the rear, shutting the door to the farmhouse kitchen after him with a little smirk.

"I'm so glad you're alright," she said. "But I'm going to kill you."

"Yeah." The bath and the short walk had exhausted Remus, and all he really wanted to do was go into the sitting room and flop onto a sofa with James and Lily and Peter and Sirius. And Phil. But he knew what she wanted to say, first."

"You don't get to decide what I do or don't do, Remus."

"No."

"I can make my own decisions. I've seen enough, I reckon, to know exactly how dangerous giving evidence against those Lestranges is, and I'm still going to do it."

"Okay."

"I also," she began, and then she tailed off, giving him a strange look. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

"You're going to dump me, aren't you? This is you explaining why." His voice sounded defeated, somehow, but he supposed that made sense, even though he wasn't sounding like that intentionally.

She looked as though she had been Confunded. "Why would I do that?"

"I annoyed you."

Philomena laughed. "Oh, Remus, if I dumped every boyfriend that had ever annoyed me I'd have dumped them all within about a week. The first day, one of them."

"What're you doing, then?" He couldn't bring himself to feel relieved, not yet.

"Having a go at you. I'll tell you exactly why you're wrong, maybe shout a little bit if I feel like it, storm out if you really annoy me. Then we'll have a shag. Well, maybe not with you in this condition, but at least a kiss." She did that thing with her lip that made him go a bit wobbly. "James and Lily do it all the time."

"Yes," he said. "But they're James and Lily."

"So do Peter and Marlene."

Peter and Marlene were a normal couple. James and Lily had something else about them, Remus had always though, some kind of fated romance. If you believed in soulmates, they would be.

"Yes," he said, eventually. "They do."

"Then why can't we?"

Remus didn't have a reason.

"I'm not breaking up with you, Remus. I don't want to, even if you've been an overprotective idiot." She went to pick at the hem of her jumper, a massive, ugly, oversized thing. "Though you're going to knock that on the head. I don't need someone to protect me."

"Everyone does," said Remus.

"Okay," she said, thinking about that. "Alright. You can protect me, and I'll protect you, but we won't refuse to let each other do things. Because that's stupid."

"That sounds fair."

"And don't believe that everyone's going to leave the minute you piss them off," she said, taking his hands. "Let's go find the others. Lily was telling me some really good gossip, I want to hear the end of it."

"You'll come to their wedding, won't you? James and Lily's. It's next month. I had an invite with an extra place ages ago. Should have asked you before."

She put her hand over his mouth to interrupt his awkward monologue.

"You idiot. James already told me I should come."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I think his phrase was 'I'm going to invite you, in case Moony doesn't sort his brain out in time and you've made other plans.' Then he went off on one about women and washing their hair."

"Prongs is terrible at women."

"I'd guessed."

"I'm not much better."

"You do okay. You've got me, haven't you?"

 **a/n:** **I would honestly read a story where Luna became a Dark Lord.**

 **On a more serious note, thanks to the readers who've stuck with this story. For some reason I've had people being offensive in the comments lately here and on , and so I'm feeling extra grateful to the people who have stuck with me and especially left nice feedback. That, and the people who've got bored and just wandered off politely, which I'm also good with. I seem to remember people like that were why I left the fan fiction world ten years ago. So thanks, nice people.**


	42. Chapter 42: Milestones

**a/n: Okay. Content warnings for (minor) references to child abuse in Sirius' past, and for discussion of kidnap and murder. Thanks again to my beta.**

 **Chapter Forty-Two: Milestones**

 _Hermione_

 _June 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

She awoke in Sirius' bed on the morning of the sixteenth of June, 1979. A date that would not go down in the annals of history, but that was, nonetheless, significant to her.

There were no windows and no clock in the attic bedroom, but even without those things she knew that it was early. There was something about the unusual stillness of the house, the tense, awake feeling in her own body. It usually took her time to drag herself from bed, but this morning, despite Sirius' sleeping body beside her, she wanted nothing more than to be out of it.

She folded herself out from the bed, as quietly as she could, and set off downstairs in search of tea.

Luna was already there when she arrived, charming the fruit in the bowl to dance a tap-dance on the table.

"We had to make a pineapple tap-dance in our OWL exam," said Hermione. "I never thought I'd see that magic used in the real world."

"It is questionable whether this strange existence of ours is indeed the real world," said Luna.

"Yeah."

They sat at the table, a pot of tea between them.

"It's a year today we've been here," said Hermione.

Luna consulted her pocket-watch. "It is a year at approximately half-past four this afternoon."

Hermione smiled. "Harry and Ron said only I cared that much about the technicalities in life."

"One is never as unique as one hopes."

"Neither are the shit moments in one's life."

It was Luna's turn to smile. "Those are also known as the gifts that keep on giving." She raised her wand again, and a pear did a perfect pirouette in the centre of the table. "You have learnt to swear since you and Sirius began to go out with one another."

"People change in relationships, don't they? I don't know if I like this change."

"Change is what change is. One cannot stop it," she said. "I was never sure if you liked me, Hermione. I now understand that you do, it is just that our belief systems are somewhat different from one another."

"I didn't know if you liked me. You always told me I had a closed mind."

"You have been known to suffer from that affliction."

"Yes." She paused, and for some reason looked around to check that they were alone before saying her next words. "When did you think we should try to fix things here? Sirius said I had a closed mind about that."

"Oh," said Luna. "Well, I attempted to tell you that I agreed with Sirius in the October, but I do not think you were listening. Perhaps as early as August, when Sirius attempted to kidnap his brother. I was not sure that was the correct way to go about it, but I did think he had rather the right stream of idea. I very much doubt his brother would have listened. Some people need to learn for themselves why their actions are not the most desirable."

"Why murdering people in the name of Lord Voldemort is bad, you mean?" That was unfair, she realised as she said it. "It isn't that easy, is it, when all your family believe that it's fine?"

"No," said Luna. "Ginny and I have been lucky, to have been blessed with families who let us make our own choices and do not attempt to kill or curse one another. Sirius and Regulus have not been."

"Sirius has told me all sorts of things about his family." She sighed. "I think it's obvious they're horrible, so that's not betraying his confidence, is it?"

"No," said Luna. "It is not. It is no secret what they are capable of."

"I've been spending too much time with them," she said. "They're so unfailingly nice to me. It's like, you can't believe who they really are."

"Not all monsters look like the late Lord Voldemort."

The Daily Prophet arrived with a thunk on the table, accompanied by the screech of the brown owl that was waiting for its payment perched on Luna's shoulder. Hermione reached out to grab it, while Luna dealt with the owl.

 **DEATH EATER ATTACK IN HOGSMEADE**

 **Ten attacks in as many days - where is our Ministry?**

"There's been another attack," she said. "And we didn't know anything."

"This was what we knew would happen," said Luna. "It is a sign of our success. It would be worse if we knew exactly what was to happen and that we could not prevent the horror. Are there any dead?"

"Three." Hermione reflected on the rest of what Luna said. "And yes. I think, on balance, it's better that we know we can influence it. But we haven't been able to save everyone." She was reminded of something she'd said before. "Luna, do you think it's selfish to only try and save our friends?"

"We're not," said Luna. "Professor Lupin's parents aren't our friends. Those Muggles Ginny saved, I don't think I even know their names. The other Muggles, last weekend. We just can't save everyone, much as I wish that we could."

"It is getting worse, isn't it? And it will continue to until either we or Harry stop it."

"Yes."

They sat in silence after that, Hermione reading the newspaper and Luna doing something with the fruit again. She wondered when she had stopped finding Luna irritating. She'd never disliked her, not really. But she'd sighed, sometimes, when Ginny had said she'd been invited round for the evening, or they'd seen her at an event talking rubbish as usual.

She summoned over a piece of parchment and a quill.

 _Goals_

 _Kill Voldemort_

 _Save Harry, James, and Lily_

 _Save Regulus_

 _Save Peter (?)_

The question mark seemed important. Ginny was adamant they should do that. Sirius was unconvinced. He usually either muttered darkly or just walked out when it was mentioned.

"Luna?" she asked. "What else is on the list?"

Luna looked surprised to be asked.

"Are you putting the Horcruxes as separate items, or are you considering them part of the entity of Voldemort?" she asked.

"Entity of Voldemort?" asked Ginny, wandering in, her hair ruffled and her pyjamas slightly lopsided somehow. "I like that. Makes him sound less of a person and more of a thing we should all just ignore."

"Can't ignore him," said Hermione. "I'm fairly sure he wants to kill us all."

"He just does not know that yet," said Luna.

And for some reason, even though the thought of Voldemort trying to kill them all over again was not at all funny, they all laughed.

Sirius walked in, sleep rumpled just as Ginny was, and stopped in the doorway at the sight of them all curled over with laughter.

"If you're laughing at me again," he said, in warning. "I've got a lot of pranks up my sleeve that you've never seen the likes of before."

"I lived with Fred and George for years," said Ginny. "I can get you back in kind."

"Okay," said Sirius. "I'll leave you out of it. But only for fear of retribution, mind. Not because I don't think you're just as complicit in whatever this is."

"We're laughing because Voldemort doesn't know he wants to kill us yet," Hermione explained.

"Ah," said Sirius, raising an eyebrow. "Yes. The hysteria of wartime has finally hit you all. It is indeed hilarious when some idiotic madman wants to kill us all."

He wandered over to the table, picked up Hermione's tea, and drank deeply from it before spitting out about half of it back onto the table.

"Save Peter? Fucking hell, Hermione, why's he on the list? He's a fucking bastard, I'm going to kill him myself if I can!"

"No," said Ginny. "We're not. I actually quite like Peter. The other Sirius thinks he's great, too. We're going to give him a chance to not be a fucking bastard, and, if he still chooses that route, then you can fucking kill him."

"Ginny," he started.

"Sirius," she replied. "You want to save Regulus."

"That's different."

"How? Peter hasn't killed anyone yet. He's scared to, even by accident. Regulus has killed, in cold blood, innocent people."

"But…"

"He's your brother. I know. But I heard you, the other you, call Peter a brother the other day. Him and James and Remus, your three brothers." She was staring him down, and Hermione realised that Ginny was doing better than she could have. "Okay, you did also call James your favourite brother, but my point very firmly stands. And I get it. For ages I hated one of my brothers, you know, because he chose the Ministry over Harry and the rest of my family. And he admitted he was wrong."

"I think the other me would probably deny Regulus was my brother, sometimes."

"He does."

"Yeah."

"So we're going to save Peter?" Ginny asked, hands on her hips, in a pose that Hermione realised was entirely Molly Weasley.

"Fine."

"Good." Ginny plastered on a massive smile and spoke in her cheeriest voice. "Now. Are we celebrating how we've been here a year today, or commiserating that we've been stuck here this long?"

Hermione didn't really know, and judging by the silence in the room, neither did anyone else.

"Someone new has moved into Jo's old house," said Sirius. "They look like a Muggle. Dark hair, moved one box in by hand and then stood at the window for a while, looking like they were admiring the view. Except there isn't a view."

"Should we be careful?" asked Hermione. She remembered the last time she had seen someone behaving strangely around Jo's house, the tall, cloaked figure with the long hair. That had been a Death Eater, checking the house. Jo had died.

"I cannot see any evidence of magic on the house," said Luna.

That didn't entirely make Hermione feel better. There was still that mystery of those buildings with the Muggles in them that they hadn't solved. Her assumption that Death Eaters could not do anything without magic had been shattered some months ago.

"No, there's nobody there," said Ginny. "Or there wasn't yesterday."

"How do you know?" Hermione asked.

Ginny looked a little bit shifty.

"You know how you told me and Sirius no more Bludgers in the house? And then you banned Quaffles, and Luna banned Snitches because the vibrations were upsetting the Nargles?"

Hermione nodded. She distinctly remembered banning all of those things, and remembered banning them all as being the sensible thing to do. Honestly. Bludgers, inside.

"Yeah, well, Sirius and I sometimes extend our garden into Jo's to make for a better Quidditch pitch. And I always check the house before, just in case."

"That doesn't make sense. That isn't a logical consequence of me banning Quidditch from the house. The living room is smaller than even just our garden!"

"Technically," Sirius interrupted, "you didn't ban Quidditch. You banned all four Quidditch balls."

"And that is important because?" Hermione asked, although she didn't think she'd like the answer.

"We've been playing it with charmed ornaments," said Ginny. "Technically, it doesn't break any of the house rules."

Hermione had been right. She didn't like the answer.

"I give up," she said.

"Excellent," said Sirius, and high-fived Ginny.

"You're my boyfriend," said Hermione, rather weakly.

"Excellent," said Sirius. "I'd been afraid to ask if you were my girlfriend."

Hermione was thrown by that. Of course she was. She had been for ages, hadn't she?

"I think that's our cue to leave, Luna, come on," said Ginny. "We need to go and buy milk. Sirius keeps drinking it all, it's bloody annoying."

"Why were you afraid to ask?" she said, when it was just the two of them, alone in the kitchen.

"Dunno."

He looked uncomfortable. Hermione's heart went out to him.

"I think it's Azkaban," he continued. "I don't know. That seems like I'm making excuses for myself. I was never much use with girls before, I could get them, that wasn't an issue, and I never had much interest in keeping them. But when I was in there, I heard all the things my mum used to say, over and over. You start to believe that shit, after a while."

Hermione stood up, and put her hand on his arm.

"You were in there twelve years. Twelve years of your worst memories on repeat has got to do something to you. There's studies that show people who were exposed to Dementors for extended periods of time have a whole host of side-effects."

"I still feel them," he said. "I don't like being on my own. I don't like not doing anything. They, the thoughts, whatever it is, it gets into my brain."

"Is that why you sometimes sit around as a dog, when you're in the house on your own?"

"I do that almost every time."

"It's okay, you know," she said. "I don't think anyone expects you to have dealt with it all, not yet."

"How long, though," he asked, in a tone that could have come across as petulant if not for the subject matter. "It's been years."

"Year one, you were on the run. Year two, also on the run, although you did have at least a few people who believed you were innocent. Year three, stuck in the house where your parents abused you. Year four, stuck in your past with me and Ginny and Luna. And I've got it on good record that I was frankly insufferable for about half of that."

"You were," he replied, with the slightest upwards twitch of the corners of his mouth.

"What I'm saying is, it's alright not to be alright, yet. But with time, you will be."

"Those studies," he said, "how long did they take for people to become normal." He looked vague, now, as if he was not seeing the room they were in so much as another, colder, lonelier place.

Hermione tried to remember. "There's not much evidence," she replied, finally. "Most short-term prisoners, under a year, recover reasonably within a year. The long term prisoners are mostly dead, or still incarcerated, even if the Dementors have gone, now."

"Good," he said, distracted. "So we don't know, for me?"

"No," she admitted. Knowledge had failed her here. She wrapped her arms around him instead, and he did not respond in the slightest, continuing to stare into the middle distance, somewhere around Luna's dancing fruit. " _Finite Incantatem,"_ she muttered, and the fruit fell to the table with a slight flop.

It was that which seemed to shake Sirius from his memory, his flashback, whatever it was that was dragging him back to that cold tower in the North Sea.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I can't do this like someone else can."

"It's fine," she said. "Don't worry. I don't want someone else, anyway, I want you."

He was crying onto her shoulder. Hermione let him. It seemed like the best thing she could do, for the man who had lost twelve years to his worst memories. She did not know what else she should do.

 _Regulus_

 _June 1979, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

Regulus paced. It was not a habit of his that he liked. He valued the still, quiet calmness that he was able to cultivate in less trying times. The stillness that the Dark Lord always owned, and even the old man, Albus Dumbledore. They were powerful wizards. Yes, the old man was powerful, even the Dark Lord understood that. He had said it was foolish to underestimate the power of your enemy, so long as one ensured that they remained an enemy.

Dawn was breaking as he walked the top of the Astronomy Tower, and it would be the very last time that he would see that, from here. He was leaving Hogwarts in approximately four hours, taking the school train down to London for the very last time.

He had an awful lot that he needed to think of, before then.

"You're up early."

Regulus turned, to find Francis leaning up against the wall behind him.

"Not all that observant, either. What if I'd been one of that Phoenix lot?"

"What do you know of the Order of the Phoenix?"

"I read," said Francis. "I listen to rumours."

"You have not joined." It hovered somewhere between a statement and a question.

"So far I have been resisting joining either side. But is it so bad if I don't care if we all married Muggles?"

Regulus did not answer. He had given up this fight with Francis, some months ago. He was quick, intelligent, and could understand complexity when he wished to. But he suffered from a Hufflepuff brain. He wished to be kind, when that was not the right choice.

"You've given up on me ever joining your lot, haven't you? Your colleagues haven't. Got cornered last weekend in Hogsmeade. One of your snakes lead me to them, and they pulled me into an alley behind Scrivenshaft's and Apparated me off to some godforsaken place. Threatened all sorts of things, they did. It seems that they don't have a Macmillan yet, and fancy having themselves one."

"I do not understand your resistance to joining." He never had understood why Francis had made the choices he had, so far. It was the sensible choice.

Francis wafted a hand in the air. "Oh, general things. I don't want to kill people. I don't want to torture them, either. I don't believe in their aims.I think calling yourself a Lord is a bit of a poncy twat thing to do."

"Francis!"

"Sometimes," he said, "I wonder how we became like we are at all, Regulus."

"So do I." It was honest. Regulus had been taught to believe in honest.

"But something keeps drawing me back to you. I don't think you're as keen on everything You-Know-Who spouts as you say you are. You don't join in with the Muggleborn baiting like your friends do, for starters."

"It is unseemly. I would prefer to keep my profile low, which ensures I can help the Dark Lord without having been put in Azkaban for a petty crime." He paused. "There is something that continues to pull me towards you, also."

Francis sighed. "You do have funny ways of showing that, Reg."

"Would you prefer it if I hexed a few Mudbloods? I can do that, if you wish?" Regulus did not know what Francis wanted from him. He had given the other boy more of himself than he had ever given anyone else, said things that he would never have said to another.

"I'd really rather you didn't. Fuck, Regulus. I don't think you know what you're getting yourself into. It's dark out there. We're shielded from the worst of it here at Hogwarts, but do you think you'll be able to keep your low profile and fucking moral high ground after we've left? You'll be expected to kill just as many as the rest of them."

"The Dark Lord does not wish me to enter fights until I have produced my heir. It is an eminently sensible position."

Francis sat down at that, brushing his hair from his eyes to reveal his raised eyebrows.

"He's actually dictating that you make a baby."

"It is no hardship."

"You're eighteen."

"My uncle fathered my cousin at seventeen."

"And we all know that was a mistake, because they married just three months before she was born."

"It has worked out for the best."

"That cousin of yours is going to Azkaban for attempting to kidnap Muggles and various other horrific crimes."

Regulus joined him on the floor. The stone of the walkway was damp and cold, the wall he placed his back against not much better. The sun had risen fully now, marking the end of his last night here.

"Let's not talk of Bellatrix."

"Fine with me. You know I hate most of your family. Don't fuck up our mutual cousin, yeah? She seems decent."

"What is it that keeps drawing you back to me?" Regulus was curious to know. "We do not seem alike at all."

"I don't know," Francis admitted. "I don't think you're the person you pretend to be, as I said. And maybe I'm not the person I pretend to be, either."

He looked at Regulus as if for approval before he continued.

"I have so far refused to join your Death Eaters. The Order of the Phoenix approached me, too."

"Are you to join?"

"I haven't decided. I don't like what you're doing, but I don't know if I'm brave enough to fight it, either."

"We may be asked to kill one another, if you were to join." Regulus felt a chill inside himself at that. He would not have been able to look his friend, or whatever it was that Francis was to him, because he knew that it was more than a friend, in his eye and cast a Killing Curse.

"The Order don't routinely kill."

"They killed Lucius Malfoy with no complaint."

"And you tried to kill the relatives of the person who was responsible in retribution. Which you know, because I overheard you discuss it with Selwyn. Children, Regulus. Two of them were toddlers, barely more than a year old. And pureblood ones, too, even if you don't think the Weasleys are up to your standards they have pure blood. How does that work with your ideology?"

Regulus did not have an answer for that, if he was entirely truthful. He had struggled with those actions, himself. He would have gladly cast a deadly curse to the faces of either of the Prewett brothers, pureblood as they were, who were attempting to kill his colleagues on a daily basis. But they were supposed to be fighting to preserve the pure blood. The Weasleys did not marry Muggles or Mudbloods. They made pure marriages and plenty of pure children.

If blood and wizarding tradition was what they were fighting for, why would they kill pureblood children?

He, without thinking until the words had left his mouth, repeated something he had heard the Dark Lord say.

"Traitors require to be taught a lesson."

"You're teaching them they ought to fight the people who want to kill their kids, I think. I doubt that's what you intend to teach them."

Regulus did not know what to say. He had never been troubled with a problem with his words, before. He had always been sure of what it was he ought to say next, whether in talk of politics or more social conversation. It was a disconcerting feeling, as if he were adrift on the Hogwarts lake.

"I do not think that is correct."

"We believe such different things, don't we? Do you care for me, Regulus, or has this been a convenient fuck while we're in the same castle?"

"I do care for you, Francis, very much so."

"And you'll be married to Adeline Fawley, when, next week?"

He would be. And that was the time that his relationship with Francis would end, if the other man stuck to his word. He had said, back at Christmas, that he would not be willing to sleep with a married man. And that was his prerogative, if that was the line that he chose to draw. Regulus knew then that he did not wish it to end.

He had intended to have Lucius Malfoy stand with him, as his cousin's husband had done at their pledging ceremony so many months before. But Lucius was dead. He had no brother, or not one that he was not attempting to kill.

"I will. Will you stand with me, at the wedding?"

Francis laughed, but not with malice. "I hardly think that's appropriate. I don't think a Macmillan you were shagging on the side for most of sixth and seventh year would be of the required standard for your family, would I? Pick Selwyn. He's got the credentials. Or your uncle."

"You would not be willing to?"

"What am I to you, Regulus? Can you answer that?"

Regulus found that he could not.

"In a different world," said Francis, standing up, his face unyielding. "In a different world I'd have asked you to be my boyfriend. I'm not going to marry a witch for pretence, you know. It might not be, in your case, you might be just as interested in girls as in boys, but I'm not. I'd have asked you to be my boyfriend, and at some point we might have told our families of that, and shared a life. Perhaps even a house. A kneazle. But I am your secret. You aren't going to betray your family expectations just to have me, are you? And your Dark Lord. That'd be defiance, now he's demanded you produce kids, and I've heard the rumours of what happens to people who defy him just as you have, Regulus."

"Francis," said Regulus.

"No, Regulus. This is it, for us. Come to me if you ever want the same things that I do. I love you, more than I had ever thought I would love someone, and despite the things you're getting mixed up in. But I cannot wait for you to choose me, when I know that you bloody well won't."

He went to the doorway, as Regulus' feet scrambled to follow him.

"Goodbye."

"Francis!" But Francis was going down the stairs at a rate Regulus knew he couldn't match, so he stayed.

It was for the best, he found himself rationalising. It was the right thing for Francis to have done. Regulus ought to have found the courage to say it himself, earlier. He could never have given Francis what he wished for, because it was not what Regulus himself thought that he wished for. He did want babies. He did want a future with Adeline, where they would grow old with their children's children at their feet.

It was at this point that he realised that he had loved Francis.

His first week out of Hogwarts was consumed with wedding preparations. He managed to escape to the Ministry of Magic on his second day home, to sign the paperwork for his new role as Junior Assistant to the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Professor Slughorn had recommended him, and the Dark Lord had arranged for one of his other followers to put in a good word for Regulus.

Other than that, it was women hurrying around with food samples, dress robe fittings, decisions to be made on decor and flowers and the music. Regulus found that he did not care what symphony was played as his bride entered the room.

It mattered that he was to be married.

It mattered that Francis would not be attending.

The acceptance card from the Macmillans had come back minus his name. His mother, father, grandparents, an uncle and his two sisters would attend, but Francis unfortunately had a prior engagement. Regulus knew that not to be true. Everyone in polite society, almost, had responded to say that they would be at this wedding. Only the blood-traitor families were not. The Weasleys, the Prewetts, the Potters, the Pettigrews, those sorts.

He suffered the social obligations with good grace. A handful were enjoyable, those that did not revolve around the correct stitch for a formal robe's hem or which shade of green leaves to have in the floral arrangements. He enjoyed the traditional meal with the bride's family, two weeks before the wedding, hosted at the Fawley house, with his cousin Lyra seated to his left and his bride to his right. Both were enjoyable companions, although he felt rather as though they did not need him to have a happy conversation.

"I am so glad that you are happy with her," Lyra said.

"I am. I do believe I will be able to love her," he replied, smiling fondly as his soon-to-be-wife chatted animatedly to his uncle Cygnus. Cygnus had been terribly unhappy since his eldest daughter had been captured, and it was nice to see him smiling once more, if just for tonight.

He may have loved Francis now, but he would love Adeline in the future. Regulus intended to make sure of that.

"Do you intend to marry, soon?" he asked her, wishing to remove the subject away from one which made him think of Francis. "Mother has prepared a list of potential suitors, although I do not know if she has informed you of that."

"Indeed she has," said Lyra. "At present, I have not decided whether to stay in Britain. I am enjoying this, but I am not committed to remaining."

"You would do well not to delay too long," Regulus advised. "Many of the more desirable wizards will be making their matches. You do not wish to be left with those that are not worth your time."

Lyra merely sipped from her goblet. "If that ever becomes a problem, I will be sure to let you know, cousin. One does not always have to do what their family expects of them. Now, I must see to Narcissa. Auntie Walburga tells me her pregnancy is progressing well, but that she is still suffering some from her husband's death."

Yes, Lucius had died, and Narcissa had come to move back in with the Blacks until the baby was born. A woman needed other women in this time, his mother had said, and there was just Abraxas Malfoy at their manor.

Lucius had died, and Regulus had work he ought to be doing. Important work, else the Dark Lord would not have asked it of him.

It was three days after that meal when he received an owl from Selwyn.

 _Spotted your former housemate,_ it read. _Seems like he's settling in for the night at the Hog's Head. If that helps with your errand._

It was not signed; only the handwriting and the reference to his task from the Dark Lord revealed the sender's identity. He had entrusted Selwyn with the job of a watchman. His family kept a house in the village, and it was well known that Sirius and his friends were regular patrons of both of the bars in the village. Regulus had his suspicions that they were sent there to spy, in part, but it was of no importance.

He Apparated.

Through the peeling windows of the dirty pub, Regulus could see his former brother and his friends. They were exuberant, laughing and appearing to take no note of their surroundings. If this was a spying visit, rather than a social one, they did not have any aptitude for it.

Regulus considered his plan. It had certainly been rash of him to have come here without one, but then, he could have spent so much of his evening designing one to have found that his brother had already left. With no knowledge of where his former brother lived, and no apparent work to trace him to, Sirius Black was a tricky man to track.

"See?" Selwyn appeared beside him, in a fashionable cut of dark blue cloak. "He is here."

"I did not doubt you."

"Have you got a plan?" Selwyn asked, with an appraising look in his eyes. At Hogwarts, as the sole contact to the Dark Lord, Regulus had been the undisputed leader. Out here, in the real world, hierarchies had the chance to rewrite themselves.

"We will lure him outside. It would draw far too much attention to do this in public, and, after all, I can see several of our own friends in there."

"They would come to our aid."

"This was entrusted to me by the Dark Lord. It is not a raid."

"We will be due some fun soon enough, perhaps."

"Indeed."

"How will you get him out?" asked Selwyn. And with luck, for that Regulus had a plan now.

"Sirius is prone to fits of recklessness, particularly if he can show off how brave he is, and therefore how superior he believes he is to my family. He has a particular weakness for witches. I have never yet seen him able to resist the lure of assisting a witch in distress."

"We don't have a witch." Selwyn did not seem to be impressed. That was no matter. He did not need to be, at this stage.

"We will ask your sister to assist. Is she at home this evening? She merely needs to scream and be visible for seconds. You can Apparate her to safety, while I deal with my brother."

"Mariesa is home, I believe. You promise that she will be safe?"

"Sirius will not be interested in harming a witch. Not when he can see me. He will desire to talk to me."

"Then why not go in there and ask him for a private word?" Selwyn was perhaps not as clever as Regulus had always given him credit for.

"I do not wish to be connected with this crime, except in the eyes of the Dark Lord. I wish to maintain my life, and marry in a week with no murder investigation hanging over my wedding. To all intents and purposes, Sirius will die at the hand of a nameless Death Eater. He will serve as a warning for his behaviour, and the death will not be sullied by it seeming merely a family feud."

"I will call for Mariesa." He stalked off though the village, returning less than five minutes later with his sister, a tall, reasonably attractive blonde witch. Regulus remembered her from various parties and functions he had attended, and indeed, she had been on the list of potential brides. His mother had not liked her, something to do with her lack of hips, but he had not found her objectionable.

"Miss Selwyn," he said, taking her hand and kissing it lightly. "Your brother has explained what it is we want of you, I trust?"

"He has." Mariesa Selwyn spoke stiffly, the same way as she held herself. "I am agreeable. I do so believe in your cause." It was like rote learning. Regulus wondered if he had ever sounded as she did. He thought it unlikely.

They were in position within minutes, Regulus with his mask snapped over his face, the dark robes he usually preferred serving as a reasonable stand-in for those of a Death Eater on activity. Selwyn lurked in the row between two houses that had been agreed upon.

"Help, somebody help me!" Mariesa lost her stiffness in her play-acting, and Regulus was pleased with that. He hauled her backwards, slowly enough so as to give Sirius time to react and to not hurt the girl. He was rewarded within seconds; Sirius appeared in the doorway of the pub, the blood traitor Potter boy beside him, and two ginger-haired women.

"Get back inside, we'll go!" shouted the Potter. Perhaps unwisely, Regulus had not banked on the attendance of Sirius' accomplice in crime. It was no matter. He could kill the both of them, and would not be sorry. He quickened his pace, passed Mariesa off to Selwyn with a whisper of thanks, and removed his mask.

"They're down… Regulus?"

Sirius stopped dead in the centre of the street, the Potter behind, and Regulus volleyed off the set of spells that would prevent anyone accessing or leaving the small cobbled street, and onlookers from being able to identify what it was that was going on. The pair of them were trapped.

"Regulus?" said Sirius, again. "Where's the girl?"

"Safe," Regulus replied. A small grin was forming along his face, and he could not prevent it. He had his brother, and the Dark Lord would be pleased with him. There was no possibility of him ending the way that Rosier had.

"What have you done with her?"

"Do relax. She is a friend, who kindly agreed to play along with my little charade so I could speak with you."

"Shit. Sirius, it's a trap!"

"You are smarter than you look, Potter."

James Potter seemed to grow several inches at that. His back straightened, and all traces of an evening enjoying merriment with his friends were gone from his face.

" _Expelliarmus!"_ he shouted, and the wand in Regulus' hand sailed into the outstretched hand of the Potter.

Regulus placed his wand hand on his sleeve, to ascertain, and then smiled.

"Ah, so now the trapper becomes the trapped."

"Tell us what you want!" Sirius had never been patient. As a boy, he had often raided the kitchen before mealtimes, and he had been so unable to wait for his Christmas present the year that he was seven that he had stolen it from his father's study a full week before the holiday.

No. Regulus would not think of the happy times when they were both boys. They were men now; they were men who had made their choices.

"It is not a matter of what I want. I will kill you, my dear brother."

"You haven't got a wand." James Potter held out the wand Regulus had been holding, as if it were a trophy.

"You indeed have that wand," Regulus confirmed.

"You don't have to kill for him, you know." Sirius fixed him with the grey eyes, the ones that Regulus shared in shape and in colour. "You don't have to. Come with us. We can hide you."

"I do not wish to be hidden. Your Dumbledore offered that to me, weeks ago. I did not accept it then. And, you do not have my wand."

Regulus withdrew his own wand from his sleeve and quickly, deftly, disarmed the pair of them.

"Over reliance on children's spells will surely lead to your deaths. Do you not fight like real men?"

"You wouldn't kill your brother." Sirius was scared, now, well and truly scared. His languid pose may have appeared to have been one of relaxation to someone who had not grown up around Sirius Black, but Regulus knew different. He always tried too hard to look as though he did not care, when their parents had disciplined them. Regulus heard the sobs, afterwards. Regulus knew that he had been afraid.

No.

"You are not my brother," said Regulus.

"Good point. He's my brother," Sirius growled, pointing to the Potter.

Regulus felt a twist in his gut, one not caused by any spell.

The Potter seemed to try a different tack.

"Go on then," he said, taking two or three steps towards Regulus. "Kill us. If you're going to do it then you might as well get it over with. Unless you're going to give me long enough to write a letter to my mum and my fiance. I've got a quill and parchment somewhere." He wiggled his hands in his pocket as he spoke. "Oh, and a dungbomb."

"You are still children, thinking you can fight in this war and win." Regulus' wand was wavering.

"We're the same as you," said James. "Just standing up for what we can believe in."

"You are nothing like I am."

"I've heard through the grapevine we're going to share a wedding date. How romantic."

"James!" Sirius' voice was a warning. "Don't bait him!"

"What did you think of the attack at the Weasley house, by the way?" James asked. "They are pureblood, aren't they? They never tried to kill any Death Eaters. Just wanted to live their lives. I thought you wanted to protect the pureblood way of things? So why'd you try to kill innocent purebloods? And children, at that."

"I was not there." Regulus' wand shifted an inch. He remembered his brother as a child. Sirius had been beautiful, even then, with a power to him that drew in everyone around him. Regulus had been jealous, until he had realised how wilful his brother was. How he would draw Regulus into mischief and then into trouble. He had still cried when his brother was sorted into Gryffindor, where he could not and would not follow.

"Might not have been, no. Still those you've thrown your hat in with. Oh," said James, "and you're not the only one who knows that two-wand trick."

James looked as though he would disarm Regulus again. This was his final chance.

But he could not do it. Instead of the man, the brother he had once known stood in front of him. The twelve year old stepping from the train with a Gryffindor scarf wound around him and a challenging grin. The seven year old, crying at the marks from his mother's wand. The five year old, charming the aunts while Regulus watched.

Instead he blasted the roof from the nearby shop, as if his wand had slipped when casting the curse, and he left, in shame and in disgrace.

He would do better, next time. He would be more prepared. The Dark Lord would have no reason to be dismayed.


	43. Chapter 43: Two Weddings

**Chapter Forty-Three: Two Weddings**

 _Remus_

 _July 1979, Lincolnshire_

The morning of the wedding (Lily and James', although it had been known as simply 'the wedding' for some months now) dawned bright and perfect, the sun rising into the cloudless sky. And Remus had been awake before it. He sat on the edge of the bed, curtains parted slightly, looking between the sunrise and the sleeping form of Philomena next to him.

It was a funny day, a wedding. He had never been to one before. He'd never had the chance. His parents hadn't gone to them.

If all went well, one day he might have a wedding of his own to attend. Now there was a funny thought, and one that he tried to firmly banish to the back of his head. He was yet to understand why they were together, and why she seemed to like him. He was grateful for it though.

No, that was the wrong word. It was the right word, but it wasn't the one he should be using.

He was happy.

Philomena stirred in her sleep as he got up and left the room, so he closed the door quietly behind him. Peter was happily snoring away on the other side of the room, although he'd wake soon. He always did, punctually at six o'clock when his alarm went off on a weekday.

When James no longer lived here, he and Phil would be able to get some actual privacy, with no Peter snoring away or wandering in when they were attempting to have some time alone. Mostly entirely innocent time alone, but it was nonetheless a commodity hard to come by in a house stuffed to its rafters. When you added Lily, who was there almost constantly, and Marlene, and occasionally a woman that Sirius was vaguely interested in, there

"Mornin'," said James, from the kitchen table, where he was sat buttering a stack of toast. "You're up early."

"I like early," Remus said, swiping a slice from him. "You're up early, too."

"Big day," was all he seemed to be able to squeeze out.

"Yeah."

"Oh. Good." James began to butter a piece of toast that he had already buttered once. "Fucking hell, I'm nervous. Feel like something's going to explode. Or fall off. I have no idea how I'm going to make it down that aisle."

"James, no offence, but I think that's Lily who walks down the aisle."

"Shit, yeah. Sirius will prod me in the right direction." He began to spread butter on the table. "Wait. No. This is Sirius. He's going to see it as an opportunity for pranking and I'll be prancing down the aisle with fucking deer antlers on my head and I'll look like a wanker!" He put his face down onto the table, flat into the butter. "I don't know why I thought I could do this! I should have made you my best man, Moony! You'd at least save the pranks for after the ceremony."

Remus thought perhaps he ought to ask Sirius to call off at least half of what he had planned. They had planned. Remus could not be assumed to be innocent, and Peter certainly couldn't. James' nerves looked as though they'd been the victim of a badly-cast Severing Charm.

"You love her, she loves you." Remus thought about prising James' head out of the butter, but decided against it. "That's why you thought you could do this."

"Yeah." He straightened up. "I do love her. More than anything else."

"Don't let Pads hear you say that."

"James," said Peter, walking into the kitchen. "Did you know you've got butter on your face? You'll be toast if Lily sees you like that."

"What?"

"Butter. On face. Won't look good in wedding photographs. Lily will be mad. You're eating toast." When the baffled look on James' face seemed to get worse, Peter gave up. "Never mind. I won't pun any more today if it's going to tax your tiny brain like that."

"Shit. Puns. Lily likes puns."

"Yeah, he's been working at about that level the whole time I've been sat here," said Remus to Peter, taking another slice of James' toast. Not the face toast, though. "Seen anyone else up?"

"Phil's in the bathroom," said Peter, rattling off everyone. "Sirius, no idea. Door's shut, so he's probably still in his kennel. There's a Prewett twin in the garden, but I haven't asked why. Caradoc is snoring in the living room. Dorcas is reading a book and glaring at him. Not seen anyone else, so I'm guessing every other idiot is exactly where they're supposed to be."

"And not cluttering our house, you mean."

"You're literally the most antisocial person I know, Remus."

"I think I just spent so long with you lot as a teenager that I've been driven to be this way."

"That's unfair, Remus. That cuts me right to the bone."

"Do you think she'll actually marry me?"

Remus and Peter shared a look at that. Okay, they'd spent far more years over the course of knowing James Potter and Lily Evans convinced that the pair would never marry. But now? Remus couldn't think of a scenario in which they wouldn't, failing Death Eater attack on the wedding.

Which they'd all agreed, out of James' hearing, that they couldn't rule out.

The wedding was to be held at James' parents house, and Remus patrolled the several acres of gardens five times that morning. His official role was to check for disguised Death Eaters and seal the perimeter, but he'd added to it trying to avoid the increasingly paranoid and irate Moody. He also attempted to avoid James, who had reached peak panic several hours ago, but quickly realised that was impossible. James was running around doing Merlin knew what, darting past Remus on average every four minutes.

"I've lost my trousers, Remus! I've lost my trousers, and Lily's parents are coming, I can't look like I'm wearing a dress!"

James had been wearing them, which Remus had pointed out. He'd then run off shouting about his glasses, which were firmly on his face.

Remus shook his head, and continued with the defensive enchantments list that Moody had set him.

"Alright?" asked Sirius, strolling up beside Remus as if he owned the place. "James is crapping himself."

"Noticed," said Remus. "Hard not to, really."

"Yeah." Sirius looked over his shoulder, a slight nervous tic he'd developed in the days since his brother had tried to kill him. "Do you think there'll be an attack?"

"No," said Remus, as firmly as he could manage. Sirius looked over his shoulder again. "Your brother's getting married today, too. They'll all be there, won't they?"

"Shit, yeah. All his fucking guests'll be nasty Death Eater fuckers. They'll all stand around planning how they can try to kill me all over again. Yes. That's fine and normal. Mummy dearest will love that conversation. She'll have fucking suggestions on the best techniques."

Remus had been waiting for this. James and Sirius had almost entirely ignored the topic of Regulus since that night in Hogsmeade where he'd tried to kill them. There'd been the odd reference to the shared wedding date, but when he and Peter had tried to make the two of them discuss the rest of it, they'd been met with stony silences and changes of subject. Lily reported similar.

"Sirius," he said. "You're allowed to be angry he attacked you."

"He wanted to kill me. He's my brother." Sirius sat down on a metal bench that looked to be more ornamental than practical, and bowed his head. "I told him he wasn't. That James was." Sirius made a vague gesture with his left hand, the meaning of which Remus had no idea. "Well, and you and Pete, but I didn't say that. Brothers are more than birth, yeah?"

"Yeah," said Remus.

"Most of me wants to kill him, too."

"Do you think you could?"

"I don't know. He couldn't kill me. And he's killed other people, we know that, don't we? He's not shown any remorse. Shit, he's not even acting like he doesn't really want to, he joined the fucking Death Eaters. Willingly, we have to assume, as he seems to be some kind of fucking recruiter, Remus. He was my brother." Sirius paused. "I'm jealous of James' family. I know he says they're mine to, but I'm still jealous."

Remus thought of his own parents; his father who hadn't contacted him except to say that he shouldn't visit again, his mother who was writing clandestine letters but would never disagree with his father in an argument.

"Yeah, so am I."

"James' parents would probably adopt you too, if you ever told them all your shit."

"Yeah."

"But you don't want to."

"No."

"Just like how I didn't want to talk about Regulus."

"It's James' wedding day," said Remus, after a good long silence. The toes of his boots were slightly muddy from where he'd dug them into the dirt of the flowerbed. "We should be happy."

"He's getting married in the middle of a war," said Sirius. "How'd he expect us to be happy for him, in all of this fucking nightmare? We can't just flick a switch and suddenly be okay about our brothers trying to kill us. He was little boy who used to come into my room because he was scared of the dark, and now he wants me dead. I could be, tomorrow."

Remus thought about that.

"We're not today."

"No."

"And James has wanted to marry Lily, oh, since when?"

Sirius offered up a rather weak smile. "He claims since their eyes first met on Platform 9 3/4 in first year, but I know for a fact she didn't meet him until the welcome feast."

"A bloody long time, that's the important thing."

"Honestly," said Sirius, with a slightly stronger smile, "they're utterly sickening. James has been making me want to puke on a daily basis since '71. I should have that embroidered on his robes. D'you reckon I have time to get Tizzy to do that? She loves me, and hates James ever since he insulted her cooking when he was six."

Remus had no idea whether Tizzy had time, but was almost certain it wasn't worth getting a house elf to embroider phrases onto James' dress robes. Especially if they weren't even very funny.

"No," he said. "It's a terrible idea."

"It isn't my best. I haven't had much time to work on all of this. Being a best man takes real, actual work, Remus."

"Peter and I have done loads of it. At least two thirds."

"I had to deal with Lily's sister this morning."

"You do have a point there. That brings your workload up to at least half, but only if you also deal with her until the reception, and not offload it onto Pete or Gideon or Dorcas or someone."

"Can I offload her onto you?"

"I'll tell Mrs Potter what you did with that teapot you claim you didn't steal."

"I borrowed it, I planned to return it, and don't you fucking dare!"

"While we're at 'don't you dare'," said Peter, strolling over with his hands firmly stuck into his robes pockets, "can we please cancel anything planned before the actual marriage takes place? Prongs is shitting a cauldron. I think he might faint if the flowers explode or whatever it was we had planned. I forget. And Marlene reckons Lily's not all that much better, for all her lovely serene facade."

"Dealt with it," said Remus. "I've taken the explosive charms off the rings, the flowers will no longer spout a selection of James' most cringeworthy lines, and Vernon Dursley's seat won't be Portkeying him to Spain. Although, I have to say, both of them might have preferred it if that had indeed happened."

"Nah," said Peter. "Really, you've either got to get rid of him and Petunia, or neither. Not worth the hassle if you leave her behind."

"That's a really good point," said Sirius. "This is why we keep you around, Worms. Now, I have important best man things to do, don't you know. I'm going to go and see how much is the right amount of Firewhisky to make your best mate drink before he marries the girl of his dreams in a beautiful and possibly incredibly overdone ceremony."

"Less than six shots," said Remus, mentally calculating. "You know he vomits at six shots in under an hour."

"And always on red wine," said Peter.

Sirius picked himself up off the bench. "Here's to better families than ours," he said, raising an imaginary glass high and slapping both Remus and Peter on the back. His eyes were slightly glassy. "I'm going to enjoy this if it's the last fucking thing I do. Prongs might be getting married at the worst possible time, but, not like he'll be marrying again!"

At that, he ambled off across the gardens, expertly dodging a house elf carrying a stack of table linen as he neared the house.

"I can't tell if he's coping or not," said Peter.

"He's not," said Remus, still watching their friend's departing back. "Are any of us?"

"If we all die," said Peter, "do you think they'll remember us?"

Remus had no answer, not one that would be what his friend wanted to hear.

"I hope so."

Peter shook his head, as if trying to make some kind of terrible thought leave him alone.

"Come on," he said. "Someone will hex someone else if we don't get back there soon. We all know that only us two, Phil and Marlene possess any useful amount of calmness."

They walked back, joking about everything that could possibly go wrong, but the normal sort of wrong that could happen at any wedding. Not the Death Eaters sort of wrong. That wasn't going to happen, unless it did, because a wedding for two people who were like James and Lily didn't deserve that sort of wrong. They deserved perfect.

And it was. Petunia Dursley sniffed only slightly when shown to her seat by Sirius. The pranks were saved for after the ceremony, aside from a large banner proclaiming 'Mr and Mrs Evans' over the table that not even Remus had noticed until halfway through the vows. Besides, it later transpired that Mrs Potter had been responsible for that one. Remus sat with Philomena, and Peter and Marlene, and when the officiant asked for James to repeat his wedding vows Philomena reached over, took Remus' hand, and squeezed it three times in quick succession.

She was beautiful, she truly was. Lily was the bride, but Remus thought that it was him with the most beautiful girl at the wedding on his arm, as he wandered down the aisle behind Sirius and Mary Macdonald, Lily's maid of honour. She reached over to straighten the little flower Lily had pinned onto his Muggle suit, the result of a compromise position between James and Lily. A wizarding wedding with Muggle clothes.

"I feel so lucky to be here," she said. "Don't you?"

And that, Remus thought, was a nice way to look at it. It covered the crippling fear of death, but it wasn't so bloody morbid.

"Yes," he said. And then, rather daringly, "and I feel lucky that you're here with me."

"Where else would I be?" she asked, and if there was something unusual in her face then Remus didn't pay much attention. He'd decided that he was going to kiss her, even if it was somebody else's wedding.

Being with her felt like the day that his friends had shown him that they were Animagi, the day they had told him they knew he was a werewolf and they didn't care. She knew what he was, and she was still here.

"Merlin, Moony, block the aisle, why don't you? I'll send you down it, next, if you're not careful."

Remus spluttered at Peter.

"The witch walks down the aisle, Peter," said Philomena, cool as anything.

There was almost a haze over the wedding. Nobody drank huge amounts, and half of the guests had a nervous twitch similar to Sirius', a quick look over their shoulder every so often, a pivot at the sound of any unusual noises. But even those faded, with time, and it was as if the wedding had made them all forget about the dangers of the world outside the neatly sculpted gardens. Hardened fighters held dainty crystal goblets in scarred hands, raising them to lips more used to shouting curses. Moody was nice to Lily's father, Dorcas got on famously with James' cousin.

Lily and James barely let the other out of their sight, half of the time having one hand on the others' arm or hand or back as they spoke to the guests. It suited them, marriage. Remus had heard the phrases many times, that a couple only had eyes for one another, or that they glowed on their wedding day. For James and Lily, at the very least, the stereotypes seemed to be true. It was disconcerting and beautiful, at the same time.

"Ah, Remus," said Dumbledore, appearing beside him without a noise. "Just who I wanted."

Remus doubted this was anything good. Usually it was something highly dangerous. Not that he minded, if it was important, but still.

"I understand you are currently between jobs, as they say."

"I find I usually am. Perils of my lifestyle."

"Ah, yes. Members of the Order of the Phoenix do often find it difficult to remain in steady employment. They do so tend towards dangerous hobbies that render them unable to work more frequently than most employers prefer."

"That too." He was still struggling, if he was truthful, with the effects of his last Order-related injury.

"I'd like to offer you a job, Remus."

"Did James and Sirius turn you down?" Remus was faintly embarrassed by that being the first thing out of his mouth, but it wasn't that it wasn't true.

"No." Dumbledore raised one eyebrow, and carefully adjusted the drape of his shimmering robes. "I asked you first, Remus."

"What's the job?"

He wouldn't be able to do it. There was no conceivable way he'd be able to do it. But his heart was hammering in his chest.

"Defence Against The Dark Arts Professor."

"I've been out of Hogwarts a year. I can't do that. And what would the parents think?"

"And in a year, do you know how many dangerous situations you have survived, Remus? More than most wizards face in a lifetime. You understand what my students may well be coming up against, as much as I wish that they will never have to. And the parents will not need to know of that, much as your schoolmates never did. I will remind you that we have kept you in the castle before with no problems arising from it, for some years."

"Except for the time I almost killed Snape." He didn't like this. He couldn't do it.

"I think we agreed to blame Sirius Black for that little encounter, did we not?"

"I just can't do it, Professor. I don't know enough, and I'm too dangerous. Maybe another time." It tore at his heart, turning the job down like this, because there had been a very long time when it was the thing he would have wanted most in the whole world, to have had the opportunity to teach. But it wasn't like he could. No. "Maybe you'd try Philomena?" He wanted something to offer to Dumbledore. "She's good. She knows her stuff, and she's been helping Peter with his duelling, I know, and Marlene."

"I am sorry you don't feel able to accept, Remus. Perhaps another time." And Dumbledore did look sad, or so Remus thought. "I will certainly ask Miss Prewett to come in for a chat. I do not know her as well as I would like, given what we are asking her to do in the name of the Order."

They both looked over at her, stood talking to a man with blond, tufty hair that Remus half-remembered from Hogwarts. A Hufflepuff, he thought. Remus couldn't remember his name, not that they'd had anything to do with him at Hogwarts, being a year younger. He and James had met in a pub and got talking, and James had invited him almost on a whim, Remus remembered. Francis, that was it.

"I see that the two of you are close."

"She's my girlfriend."

"Ah, yes, I remember. It is foolish of me, but I do sometimes forget the romantic entanglements of the young. It was a long time ago, Remus, that I was in that kind of scenario myself."

"Really?" Remus couldn't imagine Dumbledore with anyone. James had been convinced that he was sleeping with Professor Sprout for a while. Sirius favoured a torrid relationship between Dumbledore and Madam Pince. Peter reckoned he was gay.

"I may be old, Remus, but that does not mean that I was not once young. And now, I must inform our hosts what a lovely wedding this is."

Dumbledore swept off across the gardens, most likely to compliment Mrs Potter by the route he had chosen between a line of rose bushes and the refreshment tables. Remus wondered if he'd said the right thing.

Well no, he didn't. He wondered if he could have said something difficult.

"What did Dumbledore want?" asked Philomena, offering him a fresh goblet of champagne. "Peter said he was looking for you."

Peter was with her, and Marlene, and Sirius.

"Oh, nothing," said Remus, because he knew that if he was honest, his friends would try to persuade him to take the job. "Wanted to know if I had anyone to recommend for the Defence Against the Dark Arts job."

"What happened to Professor Keily?" asked Marlene. "Last I heard he was doing well."

"Dead," said Sirius. "Dark Mark floating over his place the other day. Didn't you see? It was in the Prophet." He had a dark look on his face. "Not that it's worth reading that rag anymore."

"I don't take it," said Marlene. She sighed. "It's too upsetting."

"You need to know what you're fighting," said Remus, who read it cover-to-Quidditch-section every day. "We need to know what we're up against."

"You sound like Moody," said Peter. "Maybe you should go for the Dark Arts job."

Remus shot him a look that was supposed to convey exactly why he couldn't. It was Peter's turn to sigh.

"You do know Marls worked it out, don't you?"

"What?"

"Remus," she said, "I know you're a werewolf. Peter won't confirm it, but I know."

"And you're still here?"

"I'm here for Peter, you idiot, not you. I'd be pretty pissed off if Peter was keeping something that from me. But you? Nah, you're my friend, and I like you. And anyway, I think the meal's being served in a few minutes."

"You've really got to stop reacting like that," said Philomena, pulling his hand to lag behind the others as they walked through to the tent where the wedding meal was to be eaten. "They all like you."

"Yes, but…"

She put one hand over his mouth, gently. "Shut it. I mean it. No woe is me talk on James and Lily's wedding day. I've been to a few weddings, and I'm fairly sure that what we do now is get painfully drunk, dance badly, and then go and snog behind a tree. Then you're meant to cop a feel of my boobs when you think nobody can see."

"I'd never…" he spluttered. "I couldn't do that outside, it'd be really disrespectful!"

"Give it a try," she said. "It isn't disrespectful if I want you to, is it?"

After that, the wedding was essentially perfect. They sat at the table with all of his friends, except for James and Lily up at the front of the room, toasting loudly and dancing well into the night. They crashed in a corner towards the end, the Marauders and their girlfriends and Mary Macdonald, and they drank everything they could find and talked as if they were in the Gryffindor Common Room about everything and nothing, and Philomena sat on his lap throughout the entire thing.

"I bet Sirius couldn't ride a Hippogriff," said James. "He doesn't have an ounce of respect. It'd scratch his mangy little brain out."

"I so could! I'm going to have a pet one when I'm older, just you wait."

"The main flaw with that plan isn't that you won't be able to have a Hippogriff," contributed Remus, "but that you're too incompetent to even look after a Flobberworm."

"Merlin, yes," said Lily. "Remember that Care of Magical Creatures project with the Flobberworm? Didn't it escape into the Common Room?"

"Sirius didn't take Care of Magical Creatures," said Peter. "None of us did. It was a protest against how werewolves were represented on the curriculum."

"Then why did you always have so many weird creatures in your bedroom?" Marlene asked, although she didn't look as if she was sure that she wanted to know the answer.

"That's better you don't know," said James, with a grimace. "I frequently wished that I didn't."

 _Hermione_

 _July 1979,_

Journalists had, at one point, delighted in asking Hermione if she was jealous of Ginny Weasley. It had peaked about three months after the battle at Hogwarts, shortly before Ginny had firmly hexed five journalists in a single day and they had begun to leave The Burrow alone, when the candid photographs of Ginny and Harry together had hit their peak.

 _Aren't you jealous, Miss Granger? Hermione?_ they'd ask, shouting into her face. _What about those rumours of the relationship between you and Harry Potter?_

Hermione had usually ignored them, on a point of principle, but she'd privately laughed at the idea of her and Harry together. She'd never had a moments jealousy of Ginny, for her and Harry getting what they both wanted, because she was happy as she was and with Ron.

Today, so many years afterwards, was the first time in fact that she had ever been jealous of Ginny.

Because she was at the wedding of James Potter and Lily Evans, and Hermione was attending that of Regulus Black and Adeline Fawley.

Ginny would be with Remus, the younger Sirius, James and Lily, their friends and family and the members of the original Order of the Phoenix. And Petunia Dursley, true, but Hermione was confident she wouldn't ruin the day. All of the Death Eaters that would be in attendance at Regulus', however, they had that capability in spades.

And every time she managed to get a moment alone in this hellhole, Walburga Black managed to show up to interrupt her short moments of peace.

"Ah, Lyra, dear, could you help greet the guests? Narcissa's gone for a lie down, poor girl, and I just do not at all trust any of the other ladies to speak for us adequately. Aunt Cassiopeia is quite mad, you know. She was that way as a girl, or so I understand, and the situation has not improved with age."

Hermione was therefore forced to spent the first part of the wedding shaking hands with and receiving cheek kisses from just about every Death Eater from the first war that she'd ever heard tell of, and several of those who were active in the second, as well as representatives of all the wizarding families that she had associated with the rise of Voldemort. Next to her, Walburga seemed to be in her element, keeping up a running commentary to Hermione of the guests' achievements and scandals, barely drawing breath between that and the pleasantries aimed at the guests themselves. Hermione felt as though she might be sick, along with an urgent need to wash her hands.

"Oh, hello, Madame Durmingard. Have you yet had the pleasure of meeting my niece, Miss Lyra? Alphard's daughter, yes, but she is a lovely girl. No sign of him at all, no, but definitely our cheekbones, yes. Oh yes, I see what you mean. I must speak to you later, yes I must." A last kiss on the cheek, before the elderly woman hobbled off and Walburga turned to Hermione. "Her brother is in Azkaban. Life sentence. Got involved with that Grindelwald mess on the continent. Nasty, nasty. Oh, Mrs Burke! How nice to see you, and with all of your children!"

No, there was absolutely no risk of Hermione thinking that Sirius' family was better than he was. Walburga was the last person she would trust, after Voldemort himself.

Who walked through the door, following on from some stuffy Fawley relatives and with Professor Slughorn's bulk behind him.

"My Lord," said Walburga, reverently, and Hermione's hand went to her bag before she remembered that she had left the parts of his soul they had stolen at home with Sirius, thankfully.

"Madame Black," Voldemort purred, raising Walburga's hand to his lips. "And I have never been permitted to make your acquaintance, my lady."

"Lyra Black," said Hermione.

"Yes," said Walburga, who, luckily, seemed to be very keen to make a good impression on Voldemort and did not wish her niece to have his attention. "My niece, my brother Alphard's girl. Shame about her father, that he turned out to be a blood traitor. We got rid of him, my Lord. We remove that which does not enhance our family."

"Yes, yes," said Voldemort, and to Hermione's eye did not seem to care much. "Your son, Regulus, enhances your family greatly. I see such bright things in his future."

"Thank you, my Lord, thank you."

Voldemort swept in with that, and Hermione felt something in the air lessen as he did so. She realised she had been holding her breath, and that her palms were painfully sweaty.

"Such a nice man," said Walburga. "I do not know who his parents are, but they must have been from a good family. Else how else would he have risen to where he is? And he has got the right ideas about society, let me tell you Lyra. You'd do well to listen to him, Regulus did, and he has done well out of it. Ah, hello, Horace, a pleasure to see you again! Regulus says you were his favourite teacher, and he's always held you in such high regard. There's some wine I think you'll like, ask the elves for the 1901 red. It is just to your taste, I think you will find."

Hermione lost track of the faces and the names from that point.

She wandered through the gathered throng of witches and wizards, as Regulus and Adeline readied themselves somewhere in the house, trying to decide on the least terrible option of someone to talk to. She rejected almost everyone with a Dark Mark instantly, and any of the people who were supposed to be her older relatives. One of her supposed cousins would have been fine, but supposedly Francis Macmillan was not in attendance, and Isabel and Georgina were nowhere to be seen. Adeline's sister-in-law, who had always seemed nice, if vapid, was wrangling toddlers. There were few others of her age in sight.

"Miss Black." The low voice of Severus Snape was one she recognised instantly. "Pleased to see you."

"Yes," she said. "And I, you. I have not seen you for some months."

Snape laughed. "I don't go to many of these social events," he said. "I do not get as many invites as my friends of better birth."

"Your father is a Muggle," she said. His lips flattened into a line. "My Grandfather told me."

"My father is dead."

"Sometimes that is the best place for them to be." She was thinking of Sirius' father when she said that.

"Ah, yes, so is yours. He liked Muggles, didn't he?"

"He did not see why they should not be thought of as our equals, I suppose. I never met him."

"And what do you think, Miss Black?"

It was funny, really, Hermione thought. She'd been pretending to live in this society where the vast majority of them were blood supremacists for months, and very rarely had she been asked that question. Once or twice, by an elderly pretend-relative. Most had just spouted their bile around her, and then looked to see if she agreed.

"I am yet to make up my mind on many matters of importance."

Snape's lip curled up, this time. "You would do best to make it up quickly. There are many around here who would see you gone if you didn't fall in line with their views."

"I am aware of that."

"Well, aren't you clever? I'm assuming you don't need any of my advice."

"And what other advice did you plan to offer to me?"

Hermione was curious, if she was honest. This Snape was far more dangerous than the one she had known. He wore the Dark Mark on his arm with pride, from what she knew of him, and not with the reluctance that he had when he was older.

"Oh, Lyra, my dear, the wedding is about to start!" Walburga looked less than impressed when she saw who Hermione was talking to, and took her by the arm as if in a protective motion. Hermione couldn't think of many people she'd want to be protected by less than Walburga Black.

"I'm sorry, Auntie, I lost track of the time."

"Yes, you had best to hurry. Regulus did expressly request that you sit at the front with myself, and Orion and your grandfathers. And of course, dearest Cissy. With Bellatrix taken from us, we do so need a good representation of the Black family, do we not. There are becoming less of us every year, somehow, I do believe, and it is rather frightful. Mr…" Walburga paused, as if she had forgotten Snape's name, although Hermione was sure that she hadn't. "This gentleman will be able to renew your acquaintance later, if you have time. I have, if you permit the intrusion, promised several lovely young wizards an introduction to you."

Hermione found it hard to believe that there were any left for her to meet.

"I was just promising Mr Snape a dance this evening. He did, after all, do so well to escort me to the Malfoy's party."

"Ah, yes. Mrs Snape. I do remember now, I am so sorry for the slight." She wasn't, by the grip of her hand on Hermione's upper arm as she was wrestled off into the thick of the wedding. "Lyra, my dear, you do not want to be associating with him. He does have the right ideas, yes, and Regulus is so fond of him, but he does not have the right blood. Blood will out, my darling. Blood will out. Regulus does so want you at the front. We have a responsibility for you, and I know that the Macmillans believe they do, too, but I do think ours is paramount. We all know that your mother ought to have joined our family, rather than running away. Alphard should have brought you up within the family."

Hermione shopped listening.

She found she usually did, with Walburga Black. She'd been predisposed to dislike the woman, given Sirius' experiences with her, and then her own interactions had proved that the woman was exactly who Hermione thought that she was. A woman far too obsessed with hierarchy and decorum, at the cost of her own children.

But then, there wasn't much else to listen to, here.

She'd done this because she thought that it was going to get them information. And yes, the Death Eaters did talk around her. They mostly seemed to consider her equally as unintelligent as Walburga, and spoke of attacks, plans and the Dark Lord's wishes. However, Hermione quickly realised that these men were exactly the same as almost every other male she had ever known, and that when a group of them got together, it would be bragging.

Augustus Rookwood hadn't killed fifty Muggles with a single spell. The Muggle press would have reported something like that. And Rosier, well, he could barely hold his own wand upright. His brother was dead, yes. Rumour was that Voldemort had killed him, or at least had him killed, so it was unlikely that Rosier had indeed murdered his brother's killer.

Regulus didn't brag, and neither did Severus Snape.

Hermione decided she'd forgotten something on the list of goals she'd written out, now pinned on the living room wall alongside the rest of their notes and their plans. And that was helping Severus.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my esteemed witches and wizards, if you could gather please, we are about to begin our bonding." The old, wizened officiant commanded an impressive presence, despite being folded over and apparently unable to stand upright. "Today, we will bond Mr Regulus Black and Miss Adeline Fawley, both who come to us happily, willingly and with the support of their families. Those are all as important as each other. A marriage does not need to possess love from the beginning, but it will surely grow, in these right conditions."

Regulus grew more and more like his brother each day, Hermione thought. The face, not the clothes. His fine robes, embroidered all over with a runic pattern, were not something you'd ever have found Sirius in. But the eyes, the nose, the slightly nervous expression on his usually impassive face, they were all Sirius, now. Younger, obviously. Younger than she had even seen Regulus himself look before this day.

Adeline stepped up beside him, a circlet of bronze and a black stone worn on her head, her hair loose. She wore the traditional white, of course. No Black wedding would be done without all of the many and varied traditions of a wizarding wedding. Ginny had said Lily and James Potter were wearing Muggle clothes, for the bride's family.

It was a beautiful wedding, with perfectly matched decorations and people who looked as though they could have been models. It was. But it had no feeling. Regulus looked as though he was somewhere else, although he spoke the words he was asked to speak with as much meaning as they needed. Walburga was in tears beside Hermione, and Narcissa Malfoy too. Adeline said her part, shyly peeping up at her groom. She played her part, too, and very well. It was and it wasn't the Adeline Hermione had been spending time with, both at the same time.

They spoke their promises. Hermione didn't cry. She always cried at weddings, always had done.

"I pronounce you bonded for life."

The ritual magic did its work, and Hermione was not sure if this was the right thing for either of them.

That, she supposed, was not the point of a pureblood wedding.

They would make beautiful children, though.

Not that Regulus had ever had children. But then, nor had he married.

"Congratulations," she said, to her pretend cousin, as he stood receiving the well wishes of the hundreds of guests crammed into the house. "I really do wish you all the best, cousin." That wasn't a lie.

"Thank you, cousin," he replied. "I hope to talk to you in full later. For now I must handle my guests, and my wife." There was still a soft shimmer to him from the bonding ceremony, the magic that would bind them together for whatever life Regulus had left swirling and settling still around them.

Adeline giggled at his side. "And me," she said. "We have not spoken in days! I do so miss our conversation. And you are my cousin now too, Lyra."

Regulus proved rather difficult to track down at the reception, but Adeline easier. She sought Hermione out herself, pulling her aside when Hermione was attempting to avoid Rabastan Lestrange. True to Severus' warning some time ago, Rabastan Lestrange did indeed seem to want to pursue her. Even if she hadn't had a boyfriend, not that anyone here could know of him, she'd never have settled for the man. Too cruel. It radiated from him, she'd have known of his cruelty without her knowledge of his future.

"Lyra!"

"How does it feel, being a married woman?"

"In truth," said Adeline, pulling her up the stairs and into a bedroom, "it feels much as it did being an unmarried witch."

"Why are we up here?" Hermione asked. The room, not one of the ones she had entered before, was as ornate as any in the house, and just as ugly. Too much gold.

"Oh, I wanted to speak with you in private. If anyone asks, you were helping me with a female matter. They never ask more after hearing that. And everyone knows my sister in law is far too busy with Eugenia and Ottoline, and my sisters were nowhere to be found, and so I asked you."

"You've thought this through in so much detail." Hermione was impressed.

"It pays to think things through. I am, after all, a member of Slytherin house."

"Will you miss Hogwarts?" Hermione would have. Had, when she'd been on the run.

"No. I'll miss some of the people, certainly, and I will miss some of the classes, yes. But I can study what I wish from the library, Regulus' family does have such a lovely one, and that will be enough for me. But, I can be myself with you. I find Hogwarts dangerous."

"Did you tell Regulus that?"

"Of course. He promised to protect me, as well he should. But I was worried for him, and for the others that are engaging themselves in this war. He is mixing himself up into danger. I know. My brother has joined."

"Your brother? He's a Death Eater?"

"As is my husband. Which I am sure you know. There is rather a lot of them surrounding me."

"Are you?" The question slipped out. Hermione did not understand this girl who had married Regulus, but she was almost certain that she was not a Death Eater. Her sleeves were to her elbow, for one thing, and the left forearm was entirely clear of any mark. Not that that meant she wasn't a sympathiser. It had perhaps not been a very sensible thing to ask.

"I do not wish to join, and they do not tend to ask women. So I should hopefully remain that way, shouldn't I? Especially if I get pregnant nice and quickly. Narcissa believes the Dark Mark prevented her sister Bellatrix from conceiving a baby."

Hermione couldn't think of an occasion of a baby being born to a woman that definitely had the Dark Mark. So perhaps there was some truth in what Narcissa was saying.

"Neither do I wish to join," she said. It was fair, really.

"Good. I thought that I could trust you." Adeline had lost some of her serene composure, the fairy princess look that the magic of the marriage had given her. "I want you to help me keep Regulus safe. He says he speaks his own mind, but I don't think he understands what he has got himself into. One does not leave the Dark Lord's employ. And from what I know, he has been asked to kill his brother. I do not know if Regulus will be able to do it."

Hermione knew about that, of course. Ginny had reported back from Regulus' first attempt, and Sirius, her Sirius, had told her about the times his own brother had tried to kill him under Voldemort's orders. The way Regulus had raised his wand, the way he had shouted curses at Sirius, but had never managed to utter the words of the Killing Curse. Not at Sirius, not in that timeline.

But this was different, now. Regulus had married. He was a slightly different man to the one he had been.

And Regulus had to go for the locket, or they would have no way to access it.

"I do not, either. I do not know of his relationship with his brother," she didn't know Regulus' side of the story, anyway, "but it would take someone a lot to be able to kill their own brother." Hermione hedged her bets. "He is a powerful wizard, and one with no small amount of resolve."

"That is true," said Adeline. She sat on the edge of the bed, dainty, and removed the circlet of bronze. "Witches from my family have worn this to marry in since the twelfth century," she said. "It is heavier than you would believe. Bronze and starstones. And I have married a star. One that I wish to remain in his metaphorical sky."

Hermione could relate to that statement.

"I will help you," she said, because in doing so it helped Sirius, and their aims, and because altogether, it was the right thing to do.

"Thank you. I had best get back into the wedding, now, it will be noticed if I'm gone too long, won't it? I'm the bride, after all. Though sometimes you feel like your wedding isn't really about you, at these things."

"It's about the families, isn't it?"

"Yes. We're part of it, I suppose. Can you talk to him? See how he is? We are strangers, almost, even now we are married. He may be more likely to talk to you." Adeline stood up, and replaced her crown onto her head. It was wonky. Hermione straightened it, and the younger girl gave her a look of thanks. "Thank you," she said. "I do hope we will be able to help him."

"So do I."

Adeline left, and Hermione left after her, and they were soon pressed into their roles at the wedding again. It had been a rather strange conversation, really, Adeline barely knew Hermione. Barely knew Lyra. They'd talked a lot in the wedding preparations, yes, but formalities. And the occasional talk of politics, which Walburga had quickly shushed. Nice witches did not need to talk of politics or current affairs.

No, but they could listen in.

Hermione was never so glad that Ginny had managed to make Fred and George's extendable ears again as she was at large gatherings like this. A quick twist of them out of her magically-expanded little bag, and she was able to listen in to the conversations of the wizards while standing with a group of witches discussing the latest trends in hat design. Or pregnancy.

"Oh, Cissy, you really are blooming," she said, welcoming herself into the group surrounding Narcissa. "Are you to find out if you are carrying a girl or a boy?"

"She is a girl," said Narcissa, not sounding entirely pleased. "She will carry the Malfoy name, but my father-in-law is looking to marry again. He needs a son."

"Such as shame," said Walburga, shaking her head. "She will be beautiful, and I am sure an excellent example of a witch with you to guide her, my dear. But it is a shame she is not to be a boy. I am certain Adeline will give our family a boy. Did you hear that the young Mrs Carrow is expecting again?"

Hermione pretended to adjust her hair, slipping the carefully charmed for invisibility earpiece into her ear. It snaked off towards the nearest group to contain Marked Death Eaters.

"The Dark Lord is pleased at our progress," said the man who had stood with Regulus for the bonding ritual. Selwyn. "We will have completed the experiment on the schedule set out for us, unlike Dolohov's attempt. We will be rewarded, I am sure."

"But what will be the outcome?" Rabastan Lestrange.

"Don't ask me. I don't understand it. I'm not a theoretical type. You'd want Severus for that, except he refuses to be involved. His dad was a Muggle, I think he's a bit soft on them." Selwyn, again.

"He killed six last week alone."

"Regulus, then. He has a brain on him, and the Dark Lord trusts him. Whatever you do, do not ask that Carrow girl. She has no mind to her, and she is insistent that I will marry her." That one was Avery, Hermione remembered him from the war from before. She remembered what he'd done.

"Fine. I will ask Regulus. I have done what the Dark Lord asked, and I've kept them, too, in case we need further experiments. One of the Crabbes wanted to kill them, the great oaf. I forget which of those two is which. Which reminds me. I have promised to dance with the Crabbe sister, and I need a plausible excuse to get out of it. Mama has suggested I marry her, and I'd rather have Alecto Carrow."

"Aren't you going to make a contract, Selwyn? You'd have enough offers."

"I've got my eye on that Black girl. The new one. So's Severus, mind, but we all know Pollux Black hates him. So I'm in with a chance. I had best ask her to dance, hadn't I?"

"Go on, then. The good girls will all be taken if we don't all hurry. We'll end up dancing with Miss Carrow and Miss Crabbe. Who would wish for that, my boys?"

Hermione yanked the earpiece out as Selwyn approached, and pretended to be oh so interested in whether Frank and Alice Longbottom would soon have a child. It was clear, even to Hermione who had not entirely been listening, that none of the women present liked either Longbottom, so why they were so certain to know if they would have a baby, Hermione did not know. Well, she did. They were pureblood. And in this society, so was she, if unfortunately born, and she really should have worked out that this marriage thing would keep coming up.

Luna had, to be fair, warned her.

Hermione decided that the quicker she got Regulus out, the better. And preferably before he had the bad sense to bring a baby into all of this, like Walburga insisted he was so keen to do.

 **a/n: Well, we all know that Dumbledore has made worse hiring decisions than a young Remus Lupin, and certainly worse than Ginny Weasley in a mediocre disguise. So we are going to say that's entirely in character. I think he'd see it as a terrible attempt to rescue Remus.**


	44. Chapter 44: Young Love

**Chapter Forty-Four: Young Love**

 _Ginny_

 _July 1979, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

"I don't know if this is a good idea, Remus," said Ginny, as they stood at the gates of Hogwarts. The day was overly sunny, she thought. And too hot. Sweltering. Scotland had two weather states, cold and raining or hot with added midges, and this was the latter. Hot didn't suit her.

"Nonsense," said Remus. "For starters, Albus is desperate. He asked me."

"You'd be better," Ginny muttered, but not very quietly. She knew he'd hear, anyway. He always did. He had the hearing of a bat with an Extendable Ear. "What do I know about Defence Against the Dark Arts? I doubt 'hey, I'm the one who killed Lucius Malfoy' is the best introduction to a first year class. Of Slytherins."

"No, not for Slytherins," he admitted. "But for Gryffindors? It'll go down well enough."

"Ah, fuck off," she said. "As far as you lot know, I don't have any NEWTs, even."

Ginny had never been comfortable with outright lying, and had become less so the closer she got to Remus and the rest of them. She resorted to half-truths, or dodging the question. Although, technically, she supposed she didn't have NEWTs, yet. Not 'til 1999. And even then, they weren't much good. An O in Defence, yes, without trying, but the rest of them were As. She'd been scouted by the Harpies and the exams hadn't seemed that important, not after the rest of it.

"I'm fairly sure the one we had in sixth year didn't have any NEWTs, either. I'd be surprised if she'd ever seen a real duel. Or a real Death Eater. Some Ministry imposed hag."

Ginny giggled as she thought of Umbridge.

"No, really," Remus said. "I think she was an actual hag."

"Is it true the position is cursed?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I mean, it's true none of them have lasted more than a year. But some of them, honestly, it's amazing they lasted as long as they did. The one in our third year, well, he brought a troll in week two of lessons, and he had no idea how to get rid of it. He had to go to St Mungo's for three weeks, after that. We had one who managed to explode the fourth floor toilets. I reckon, after a while, all you can attract to the job is idiots with a deathwish."

"Oi."

"Okay, okay. But you don't want the job, not really, so you don't count. At least three of the ones we had were trying to break the curse. The one who exploded the toilets was famous for wandering the corridors with incense and brandy, doing some cleansing ritual. We followed him for a while. He did it for hours, it was so sodding boring. And he never drank the whisky."

Ginny decided to ignore most of that. Not that she'd ever get bored of Remus' stories, the same way she didn't get bored of Sirius' at home, but it wasn't the point.

"No Death Eaters in the job yet?"

"Dumbledore says he gets at least one apply every year. And there's a few on the board of governors who, even if they aren't marked, definitely sympathise with Voldemort, so Dumbledore's in a bit of a bind. If he can't find someone better, the board insist he appoints one of the candidates, so he'd end up with a Death Eater teaching. I'm not convinced the troll guy wasn't, you know. He never did any of the dangerous shit in Slytherin classes."

"Slytherin doesn't always equal Death Eater."

"Well, no, not always, but the correlation is really quite strong." She must have pulled a face, judging by the look he then gave her. "Why? You reckon you'd have been a Slytherin if you'd come here?"

Fred and George had said that she should be, more than once.

"I think someone's coming to get us." Nice subject change, there. She was getting good at this 'avoiding telling the truth' shit.

"It's Professor McGonagall," said Remus, narrowing his eyes to better see in the glare of the sunlight. "You'll like her. Though don't take the piss. She's strict."

"I'm coming here for an interview, not as a terrible student like you were."

"All my NEWTs are O's, thank you, I was an excellent student." He grinned. "If a little bit annoying sometimes."

"Mr. Lupin, I remember you distinctly as being very annoying. You and all of those friends of yours. I've never gained more grey hairs over the course of any other student's time here, and I've been here twenty years."

Ha. McGonagall had a lot less grey hair than she'd had the day Ginny left. Most of the ones in the interim had been gained over the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been at school.

"Sorry, Professor." Remus had the decency to look contrite. Even without the extra knowledge of Ginny Weasley, Philomena Prewett knew enough to know that he'd been frankly a little shit at school.

"As I remember saying frequently, sorry does not make a difference, if one keeps on repeating the behaviour. Which you always seemed to."

"Sorry."

"And again with the apology." She tutted, and turned to Ginny. "Miss Prewett, I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration and Deputy Headmaster of this school of witchcraft and wizardry. I understand that Albus wishes to offer you an interview for the post of the Defence Against the Dark Arts, is that correct? And that this boy has decided to accompany you, against your better wishes?"

"Yes," said Ginny, suppressing the urge to laugh. "Remus has gallantly offered to accompany me."

"And are you certain," continued McGonagall, "that he intends only to show you the way to the school, and not to set some kind of trap, or practical joke, or to steal a dangerous artefact from our caretaker's office?"

"I have no idea of Remus' intentions, Professor. I hadn't thought to ask."

"Always ask, my girl, when dealing with this one. Others, naive others, assumed Potter to be the ringleader of their little gang. Perhaps Black. I, however, know Lupin to be the prime cause of many of their little escapades. Made all the more dangerous by the fact that he was far better at not being caught. And please, call me Minerva. We may well be colleagues. So far, you appear to be the only applicant for the post who is even vaguely qualified."

"Can I call you Minerva?"

"Certainly not, Lupin," she said. Remus withered slightly under her gaze, and Ginny could detect amusement in the clipped Scottish tones, even if Minerva was doing her best to keep an entirely straight face. It was the face she'd always used at Fred and George. "You can have tea with me, though, while your lady friend is talking to the Headmaster."

"Merlin," muttered Remus, once they were following McGonagall up to the school. "I'm fairly sure this is a detention in disguise."

"I think she likes you," said Ginny. She felt in her pocket; the emergency diversions were intact. "I'd have put you in a waiting room somewhere."

"Your own boyfriend," said Remus, "and you don't even want to have tea with me. What hope do I hold in life?" He put on a mock pouting face, and reached for her hand, swinging it back and forth several times. "I'll be an eighty year old bachelor, living with Sirius."

"And his pet Hippogriff," said Ginny.

"Ah. On second thoughts, I'll go gatecrash James and Lily's happy retirement. Maybe I could become their live-in childminder. James wants like a thousand children."

"He doesn't have to be pregnant."

"True enough. Lily says he can have one, and she'll see how much childbirth hurts."

"Lily is a sensible witch," said McGonagall, who had obviously been listening in. "She has far too much sense for Potter."

"I've been saying that for years," said Remus. This, apparently, was one thing he and Professor McGonagall agreed on.

The castle had changed hardly at all in the twenty years between where Ginny stood now in time and where she had been. The Entrance Hall doors did not have the large slash in them that Fred and George had supposedly cause with an errant Slicing Hex, nor did the staircase have the slightly disturbing stain that had marred a section of floor on the eastern side. But, the large, green cloud that floated above a doorway on the first floor was there, and the entirely blank portrait that hiccuped.

Remus acted as tour guide, pointing out areas of general interest ("that's Transfiguration, and that's Charms, and that's the direction of Gryffindor Tower,") and of his own personal history ("that's the tapestry that Sirius once hid behind for seven hours, because if he'd come out he would have been caught making all of the suits of armour spew jelly from their visors").

"Oh, so that is how that happened," said McGonagall. "I wondered how in Merlin's name you got away with that one."

"I had nothing to do with it," said Remus, sweetly. "I recall I was in detention, with you, at the time."

"Well," said McGonagall, tartly. "I saw you four as an entity."

"That is entirely unfair," said Remus, to Philomena. "Sirius was a notorious flirt. James, Peter and I are much better with girls."

"It helps," said McGonagall, once again proving that she heard everything. "to refer to adult females as women."

She deposited Ginny at the door to Dumbledore's office, provided her with the password, and checked to ensure she went in. As Ginny climbed the spiral staircase behind the gargoyle, she heard McGonagall beginning to grill Remus about how he was getting on at work. Ginny had been right. McGonagall did like Remus. She just might talk his ear off, though.

Ginny personally felt that she was in for the harder time. Taking a deep breath, she knocked several times on the door separating the stairway from Dumbledore's office, and at the call of his voice, pushed it open.

He sat at his desk in the grand room, a slightly bald-looking phoenix on his shoulder. The desk was covered in parchment, the shelves behind filled with whirring instruments. A first-time visitor would be awed, Ginny decided. It was no ordinary room.

"Ah, Miss Prewett. May I call you by your given name? Please, do come on in. I am afraid that Fawkes over here is shedding today. You are liable to leave here covered in feathers. Flying saucer?"

Ginny wondered if that was designed to catch out the supposed Muggle-raised Philomena. No wizard she'd known had ever eaten the sweets, but, luckily, Hermione had a weakness for the things.

"Thank you, Professor." Ginny actually didn't like them. Something about the way they disintegrated. She took one anyway. "And yes, please do call me Philomena."

"Then please call me Albus. Reciprocity is important, Philomena. Especially when we may become colleagues here at Hogwarts. Tell me, how do you like the school so far?"

"It's grand. I think there's a high chance I could get lost in it."

"Yes. You received a Hogwarts letter on your eleventh birthday, did you not?"

"I did."

This was the first test, they'd decided, the first proper test. Moody had done his background checks on Philomena, which they knew partly because Remus had helped conduct them, and because Luna had been called upon to provide Moody with information. But Hogwarts had it's own book and quill that recorded the name of every magical birth, and Ginny was sure Dumbledore would have checked that. Perhaps even contacted her so-called parents. She wondered what they'd say. The real Philomena, she realised, might not like her identity being co opted like this.

"So you will know of our school. But your father did not let you come."

"He didn't."

"Well, even if I do say so myself, you missed out on learning at a fine establishment. You seem to have done yourself well, learning from books. That is what my dear friend Alastor says anyway."

"It was all that was available to me," she said. "But books have an awful lot to teach you." Ginny really didn't like outright lying. Books were just books, whatever Hermione and Luna said.

"I don't think I have had the pleasure of this lengthy a conversation with you in the past. I am curious as to exactly how you found yourself becoming so proficient at defensive spells, and how you came to join my Order. I have heard from Mr Lupin, of course, but I would very much like to hear it from you."

Ginny tucked her hair behind her ear before starting her explanation. It was still disconcerting, the shorter length.

"I learnt defensive magic because my father told me the wizarding world was a dangerous place, especially for people of my birth. And I wanted to find out more about it. It made sense to make sure I was prepared for every eventuality." She took another flying saucer, and was again reminded that she didn't like them. "I joined the Order because I met Remus."

"Ah. Yes. You two are in love."

"He is my boyfriend."

"Young love." Albus sighed. "Do not be afraid to admit when it is love, Philomena. I may be an old man, but I do have some advice to impart on that. I believe your boyfriend does not believe that I was once young."

Ginny, although logically she knew it to be true, also found that hard to believe.

Not that she had any idea if she was in love with Remus Lupin. To even think that she might be felt highly disloyal to Harry.

"Of course, I am not here to give that advice today. You are here about a job."

"Yes." She was here to get a fucking Horcrux without being detected. The last thing she wanted was to become the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. For all her protesting, Remus had been right. It was generally the home of idiots with a deathwish. Or just idiots. Massive fucking idiots.

And Remus. The Remus that had lost all of his friends.

"Why do you wish to become the Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor?"

"If I am honest, Albus," that felt funny, calling him Albus, "I don't know if I do."

"Sometimes the person who wants the job least is exactly he who should have it. Or she, in this case. I do find some of the old sayings terribly biased towards the subject being a male."

Ginny settled for a shrug in response to that. "Remus suggested I'd be good at it."

"Yes. You will forgive me for saying, Philomena, that you are, on paper, not the ideal candidate for this post. You do not currently possess a NEWT level qualification in anything, least of all Defence Against the Dark Arts. I am not sure of any of your educational or personal history, save that you arrived into the life of one Remus Lupin last winter, and that he introduced you to the Order of the Phoenix."

"Why am I here, then?" Ginny wouldn't probably have said that if she'd wanted the job.

"Because something about you interests me. You have shown impressive loyalty, first to Remus and secondly to the Order, over the few short months you have been a member of our little society. You have killed Lucius Malfoy, a right-hand man of Lord Voldemort by all accounts. You manage to escape from altercations with Death Eaters without injury. You have taken to tutoring Peter Pettigrew in duelling, when you did not need to and nobody asked you to do so. And, as far as I am aware, you have no personal reason to become involved in this. Yes, you have cousins involved, but you did not know them. You joined because you wanted to, am I right?"

"Is that rare?"

"Most of our members join because they see it as a duty, or because they are trying to avenge someone, or make up for something that they perceive as a fault within themselves. Take young Remus. He cannot get regular work, because of our society and their prejudice against him for what he is. I know he has told you, do not worry that I am breaking his confidence. Sirius Black wishes to show his family that he is not what they are. Why do you join?"

"It seemed like the right thing to do."

"And yet, the right thing to do is often difficult. As it is in this case. And so, the vast majority of wizardkind, and I would go so far as to say humankind, does not do it. So why do you?"

"I dunno." Ginny was, thankfully, rather good at Occlumency. At least when she wasn't getting annoyed with questioning that was entirely irrelevant to the post. She took a deep breath. All of this questioning could well mean Dumbledore was suspicious, and, honestly, she could do without the hassle of fanning those dragon-flames. They had no real idea how much prodding her disguise would stand up to.

Another deep breath, and some rather vague memories of a kid being pushed around a bit (Colin Creevey), because it didn't really make sense with Philomena's biography that she'd be an Occlumency expert.

"I've known kids who weren't treated very well. I don't like it. All this with Muggles and Muggleborns being killed, it reminds me of that." She remembered something else. "I'm worried for my family. And the Prophet says that someone is targeting non-magical families where one of the parents is a Squib, now."

Luna had been the one to leak that, via evidenced anonymous tip. Damn useful that she'd been a journalist before, really.

"Of course. That would make perfect sense."

Ginny waited for the next question. All the rest were about the actual job and whether she'd be any good at it, thank fuck.

"I'll be okay to leave by myself," said Ginny, when the interview was deemed to be over. "Don't worry about me, I think I remember the way back out."

"Oh, no, Philomena, we take school security very seriously. In these times, you have to, don't you. I'll just pop a message back down to Minerva, she'll see you out."

That slightly scuppered her, admittedly bad, plan to get that diadem from the Room of Requirement. Ginny was a Weasley, whatever name she currently gave to people. She'd been busy at home. The Decoy Detonators were ready.

Once out in the corridors with Remus and Minerva, Ginny dropped one as surreptitiously as she could.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Ah, fuck. She dropped another, which did what it was supposed to do and began honking somewhere in the middle distance a minute or so later.

"What's that?" asked Remus.

"I assume," said McGonagall, barely acknowledging the sound, "that it is you up to your usual tricks, Lupin."

Remus put on a face of mock outrage. "It's nothing to do with me, Professor."

"If I had even a Knut for every time you have said that, I would have been able to retire by the end of your sixth year."

Ginny waited a couple of minutes, and chucked another one from her pocket.

"Lupin!" said McGonagall, when it went off. "I'll not be letting you into this school again, you'll stop whatever this is, please."

"I can't," he said. "I don't know what it is."

She pursed her lips. "I do want to believe you, Lupin."

They walked a bit further down the corridor, towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

"This is where you will be teaching, subject to your acceptance of the job."

"I haven't been offered it, yet."

"You will be." McGonagall turned on her heel.

"Yeah, you don't have anyone else," muttered Ginny.

If McGonagall heard that, she ignored it, marching on down the corridors. It left Ginny with a conundrum. She could try dropping another Detonator, and see if a third unusual noise drew McGonagall away. However, it was, if anything, more likely that she'd just blame Remus again. Or even Peeves. If Ginny hadn't known better, she'd have assumed it was Peeves.

And they were getting really quite far away from the seventh floor corridor she needed.

"You can leave us here if you like," Ginny tried. "I'm sure there's things you need to be doing. Remus can lead us out."

"Certainly not."

Ginny hadn't really thought that would work. And she'd still have had to have got rid of Remus, anyway, although a trip to the toilet would probably have solved that. McGonagall would probably have gone in there with her.

Short of Stunning the pair of them, or just running, she was running out of options. Confund them? That would wear off too quickly. Damn. She'd been sure the Decoy Detonators would work if she'd been in this situation. To be fair, Hermione had told her to have a better plan.

Nicking McGonagall's hair and using Polyjuice? Like that would work.

Ginny was still half-heartedly plotting, her ideas becoming less and less use, when they reached the Entrance Hall again. She'd reached idea number forty-seven, which was to pretend she was dead in the hope that they left to bring help. It was shit, and that was saying the least. McGonagall showed them out, and Ginny had no Horcrux. Hermione had got one, Sirius and Luna had got one, and she'd got Remus told off. Oh, and probably a job she didn't want.

"Well, thank you, Philomena. We will be seeing you in September, I expect. And Lupin? Next time I see you, I expect better behaviour. Do look after yourself out there. I'd hate for anything to happen to my favourite student."

Remus looked baffled.

"Who's that?"

Ginny elbowed him.

"Oh. Really?"

"Try to keep up, Lupin."

She disappeared, closing the doors behind her, and Remus continued to stare at them as if McGonagall would appear and shout 'April fool!'. Despite it being August. And the wizarding world not yet having caught on to April Fool's Day.

"Do you think?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"She doesn't seem like the sort of woman that would lie." Well, only to Umbridge.

"But," said Remus.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Ginny, which wasn't entirely fair. "Come on. Someone says they like you. Take it at face value."

"Phil, I," he tried, again.

"No. No rationalising it as someone messing around with you. None of that." She grabbed at his hand, and began pulling him down the path to Hogsmeade. "McGonagall likes you. Your mates like you. I love you. Get a move on, we said we'd meet the others at Lily and James' new place and we can't Apparate from here."

Remus' feet had been moving, but they stopped somewhere in the middle of Ginny's sentence. She dropped his hand and turned, with her hands on her hips, to glower at him. She immediately put her hands by her sides. Far too much like her mother.

"You love me."

"Oh, yeah, I did say that."

"You love me."

Ginny let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a snort. "The appropriate responses here are snogging, saying that you love me too, or instigating a chat about how you don't feel the same way, we're moving too fast, and you need space. Which is it?"

"Not the last one," he said. "Not the last one. Bugger. Erm. I love you too, Philomena Prewett. I'd use your middle name, but I don't know it. Can I do the snogging one too?"

"Yeah," said Ginny, her stomach doing gymnastics. "Yes. Please do."

With a jerk behind her neck reminiscent of a Portkey, she was pulled forwards and wrapped into him. His lips met hers, she stopped caring that they were practically right outside the doors of Hogwarts and had places to be. She stopped caring about much other than the feel of the two of them pressing together, his tongue exploring in her mouth, his hands steadily disappearing under her Holyhead Harpies t-shirt.

"Do we have to go to James and Lily's?" he asked, pulling away, biting his lip. "Can't we go home first?"

"Remus!" She tapped him on the arm, and grinned. "We've just about got time." Taking his hand again, she continued pulling him down the path. "Might not have time to make it all the way to your bedroom."

"Phil!"

Ginny reckoned the outrage was almost entirely faked.

The dinner party at James and Lily's, which they were spectacularly late for, was excellent. Ginny almost forgot that half of these people were dead, as far as she'd always known, and settled into enjoying their company.

"Alright?" said Peter, after three enjoyable courses, what felt like two bottles of wine a person, and Sirius trying to persuade everyone to take up smoking cigarettes (Ginny declined). "Hear you got the job?"

"I don't want it," she said, which she felt like she'd told everyone, and nobody listened. "Remus said he loved me."

"Wow." Peter looked impressed. "He's not really one to come out with that sort of thing. When we, well, we did something for him once, anyway, and he sort of choked out that we were good friends and then looked as though he wanted to lock himself in the toilet for having had such an emotional outburst. It was a pretty bloody impressive thing, but still."

"What was it?" Ginny knew, or could guess, but still.

"Can't tell you. Marauder secret. Lily was only allowed to know when she agreed to marry James."

"So what you mean is I've got to get Remus to propose, before I can know."

"Pretty much."

"Remus is proposing?" Lily. She deftly leapt the back of the sofa Peter and Ginny were sitting on, plonking herself firmly between the two of them. "Why don't I know?"

"Because he isn't," said Ginny, shaking her head. "Peter's refusing to tell me Marauder secrets until I'm engaged to Remus. Which isn't happening."

"Aww, but you two are so nice together. Look at him. Look how happy he is."

Remus was glowing, Ginny decided. He was telling Sirius and James a story, complete with extravagant gestures. Every so often, he stole a look towards her, as if he thought nobody else could see him looking.

"But he'd hide if we even so much mentioned weddings."

"For days," Peter agreed. "Maybe in a couple of years."

Ginny would be gone by then. Well, that had always been the plan. Kill Voldemort, leave. Go back to Harry. But what if Harry wasn't there? What if he didn't want her, anymore? What if her future was better off here?

"What about you and Marlene?" she asked Peter. "Aren't you going to, you know?"

"Well," he said. "I've been trying to decide if I should."

As if as one, both Ginny and Lily leant forwards, and answered him. "Yes!"

"She loves you," said Lily. "And she wants you to, because she told me."

"Why wouldn't you?" asked Ginny. "Worst she can say is no."

"But look at everything that's going on," he said. "I might die. She might die. What if we both die?"

"Look," said Lily. "You never said James and I shouldn't get married. If we die, we'll have done something fun before we did. If we don't, well, we might regret the rush marriage in twenty years when I remember that I hated him for six and a half years, but it won't have been wrong. I don't think."

"No," said Ginny. "It won't be."

"Okay." Peter didn't look convinced. "Would it be terrible if I did it now? So I can't lose my nerve?"

"Only if you let me see the ring," Lily demanded. "It's my housewarming. So it's stealing my thunder if you don't let me see it."

Peter pulled the box out. A tiny amethyst sat in a circle of diamonds, on a band of gold. "She likes purple," he said, by way of explanation, almost shrugging as he said it. "I liked it."

"It's perfect," Ginny said, and Lily nodded. "Now go and do it." Before he could change his mind, Ginny stood up and shouted across the room. "Marlene! Come over here, a second?"

"Yes?"

"Peter!" Lily prodded Peter in the back.

"Er, fuck, er, Marlene? Will you marry me?"

Of course she accepted. Of course they then stayed for more drinks, and Remus found Ginny in the crush of congratulations.

"Did you make him do that?" he asked.

"Me and Lily." Ginny didn't want to take all the credit, but then, she had been involved. Every time she saw Peter, she wanted to make his life with the Marauders and the Order better. The more he had to lose, the less he'd want to go to Voldemort, she reasoned. It was her best hope, this early in the timeline. If it ever got closer, she'd considered kidnap. Even if Hermione said it was unethical. Luna seemed on board.

"Well, thanks. Peter's been annoying us for the last six months about whether to ask. He's had the ring since before Christmas." He twisted a loose end from the sleeve of his shirt around his finger. "I'm glad he's happy. Almost as happy as I am, I reckon." He put his arm around her back, and she put his head on his shoulder. Yeah. Horcrux or no, she was happy, too. And that would do, for now. No need to worry about any of her possible futures.

He walked her out at the end of the evening, slightly unsteady on her feet after the champagne James had dug out from his wedding stash.

"You sure you won't come back?" he asked.

"No, can't," she said. She'd promised to update the others about the Horcrux. "Got something to do in the morning."

"I've never seen your place."

"Not tonight."

"Okay." He kissed her lightly. "I meant what I said, you know. I'm happy. Happiest I've ever been with a girl."

Ginny Apparated home with the feel of the kiss on her lips, and a soft glow of happiness. Which swiftly evaporated on arriving back into the living room, seeing everyone arranged around on the sofa and chair, and awaiting her triumphantly pulling a diadem from her bag. Which, obviously, was not going to happen.

"Well," said Ginny, as she threw herself in the general direction of the beanbag, "it was a mess. Disaster, I'd go as far as. What was that word? A debacle. Calamity."

"What on earth happened?" Hermione raised her head from the book she was reading. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," said Ginny. "Everything."

"That's about as unhelpful as you could get," said Sirius. He was looped around Hermione, implausibly. "Which was it?"

"I tried all the ideas we had, and McGonagall didn't leave me alone for a second in the castle, unless I was with Dumbledore. I'm going to have to accept the job just to be able to wander around the castle and get to the Room of Requirement! I don't want to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts! And Remus said he loved me."

"It is a role with a somewhat higher than average mortality rate," said Luna.

"No," said Ginny. "It isn't that. I don't like teenagers!"

"You have said, quite often, that you want at least three children." Hermione's expression was nonplussed.

"Can we focus on the 'Remus loves you' thing?" asked Sirius.

"I love children. They're cute and amusing and they're nice to you. Teenagers talk back, and they're irritating as fuck. Not doing their homework, sneaking off with girlfriends or boyfriends, running off to the Ministry of Magic to steal prophecies, the lot."

"That was just you, Ginny."

"Hey, you went to the Department of Mysteries too. And can I just bring up Victor Krum? Cormac McLaggen? Merlin forbid, my brother?"

"Excellent, Ginny, bring up all her exes in front of her current boyfriend, why don't you. Also, I did all of those things, except we tried to steal a time turner rather than a prophecy." Sirius didn't seem that bothered.

"Merlin's beard, it is honestly a wonder we're a successful, functioning group of adults these days." Ginny sighed. "Though, that's not even true."

Sirius counted them out on his hands. "Ex-convict accused of murdering three of his best friends and twelve Muggles. Former Harpies Quidditch star, reduced to teaching at Hogwarts. Former Ministry official, now socialite and Death Eater minder. And Luna, who, honestly, is doing the best of the lot of us. And she's pretending to be her mother and has a dull job at the Ministry."

"I thank you for that," said Luna, "although I am less than convinced that it is true. The rest of you are happy romantically."

Ginny didn't quite know what to say to that. "The Prewett who isn't gay is single," she said. "I could set you up. I'm not sure which one it is, mind."

"Nobody is," said Sirius. "I've always assumed it was slightly flexible. Remus slept with Gideon, didn't he?"

"He never told me that!" Ginny supposed it wasn't really her right to know.

"No, well, I don't tell people about everyone I slept with." Sirius was enjoying this, the git. "Honestly, I lost track sometime around 1980."

"Ginny's just revealed all mine," said Hermione, rather wryly. "So I suppose that I do."

"This was supposed to be about Luna," said Ginny. "What do you think, Luna?"

Luna took a deep breath, lowering the book she had been holding.

"I am not interested in men," she said.

"Oh." That wasn't something Ginny had considered.

"Yes."

"Dorcas is single," Ginny ventured. "And a lesbian, apparently. She's probably fifteen years older than you, though, is that a problem?"

"I think it may be time for me to go to bed. I do have work in the morning, after all, and it is difficult to file accurately when I am tired."

Luna put down her book, gently, and glided from the room.

"What did I say?" Ginny asked, wondering if she should go up after her.

"Best not to," said Sirius. "Have Hermione's room, tonight."

Hermione looked baffled, but accepted this giving away of her bedroom. Ginny realised her bum was halfway up and out of the beanbag. She sat back down.

"Why?"

"Just, don't, yeah?"

"When were you the one in tune with people's feelings?"

"People change."

Ginny felt sometimes they changed too much. Perhaps that was the champagne.

 _Harry_

 _June 2002, Ministry of Magic_

"I don't understand," said Harry, to Ron, as they went down a level from the Minister's Office to the Auror Department. "None of it makes sense."

"I was going to propose to her," said Ron, with a pained expression. "Look!"

Harry pulled him into his cubicle as Ron pulled out a ring and began to wave it around in the air.

"Ron," he said. "Calm down, or Kingsley'll take you off the case. We've got to be professional, or we'll end up with some idiot doing it."

"Yeah," said Ron, looking dazed. "Professional."

"So," said Harry, pulling a fresh piece of parchment from the roll on his office wall. "Leads. We've checked all the obvious places, so we need more leads. Let's write down everything we can think of, and go through them all in turn."

And they did, noting every connection any of the three witches had to anyone or anywhere that they hadn't already checked.

"Wait," said Ron, as if he was struggling to remember something. "Isn't Luna going out with Lavender?"

"Lavender Brown? Lavender Brown who you went out with in sixth year? Is she?" Harry felt as though he was struggling to remember something, too, as if something was missing. A loose piece, somewhere in his brain. "I don't remember Lavender and Luna. She didn't go to your birthday party with her, did she? Lavender's with…" He knew there was someone, someone different, but he couldn't recall her name.

It began with a P, he thought, and they'd been to Hogwarts together. A Gryffindor? But there hadn't been any other Gryffindor girls in their year, except Hermione and Lavender. And it had been a girl, Harry was sure of it. Because the way she'd been with Ron, he had been sure that Lavender was into boys.

"Write it down," said Harry. Ron obliged.

"Okay," said Harry. "We'll check in with everyone again, first, just to check nothing's changed. Then we'll tackle the list."

The Burrow was empty, and so was Grimmauld Place. Hermione's flat had a family living there, a Muggle family, who did not seem to understand why two men in robes were standing in their doorway.

"Xeno?" shouted Harry, finally, through the letterbox at Luna's father's house. At least that was where he had thought it would be. Everything else it felt like had changed in the time he had been sleeping, and Ron had slightly different memories to his, and neither of them were entirely sure whose were correct. Ron believed there had been a kid called Draco Malfoy at school. Everyone knew that the first Ravenclaw Malfoy in centuries had been Sagitta.

He tried again, when there was no answer. "Xeno Lovegood!"

Finally, the door creaked open, and Luna's father appeared in the doorway. His face and arms were streaked with ink from the printing presses, his yellow robes too.

"Harry."

"Yes. Have you seen Luna?"

"Luna? Why, Luna is at work. That is where she said she was going this morning."

Harry had spoken to Xeno this morning, and he hadn't seen Luna for twenty-four hours, then. Of course, he wasn't the most reliable witness. Harry still hadn't forgive him for… something. There was something.

"Luna is at work. Okay, Mr Lovegood. Remind me, where does Luna work?"

"Why, the Department of Mysteries, of course. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that, am I? But you are in the Auror department, so there must be a reason you are asking."

"Damned if I know," said Harry, who once again had the feeling he was spectacularly missing something. Hermione would have known what was going on. Hermione always did.

He supposed he was going to have to go to the Department of Mysteries. Again. He'd been there for the prophecy. The one that had said that he would defeat Voldemort. Which he'd done, hadn't he? He could face the Department of Mysteries again.


	45. Chapter 45: Breakout

a/n: Before we start, can I just say thank you to whoever nominated this fic for the Marauder's Medals awards? It was nominated in the Best Sirius, Best Non-Marauder for Regulus and the Best Drama/Angst categories. I honestly didn't expect anyone to nominate it so I'm just a bit overwhelmed by it all at the minute! Wow.

If anyone fancies voting for it, the voting is here: forms/d/1Hq1pLmIfsbF1Pfyp5o5E6dgp065ARWrRU90xFZ3fqq0/viewform?edit_requested=true

If you don't want to, you might as well vote anyway, there's some really good other fics in there.

Thanks also to my lovely Beta, Rachael.

This chapter carries warnings for character death (murder), crucio-ing, and general Voldemort nastiness.

 **Chapter Forty-Five: Breakout**

 _Sirius_

 _August 1979, Ministry of Magic_

"It's shit."

To say that Sirius was unimpressed with the plan was an understatement.

"Ah, really?" asked Ginny. "We'd never have guessed, not with the way you're moping about over here." She crossed her arms, poking her tongue out at him. Sirius ignored her.

"I can't think of anyone else who can do it," said Hermione, with the air of someone long-suffering. She sat on Luna's colleague's desk, amongst the chaos. "It has to be you. You're the only one who's capable."

"Only one who isn't important enough to be somewhere else," he muttered. Ginny elbowed him.

Hermione sighed, clearly irritated. "I've spent the last couple of weeks on this. Hours of my time, with your family. Gathering information, so we can prevent anything terrible from happening. I've had countless teas, with all the pureblood women in the entire wizarding community, it feels like, lurking in corridors because nobody tells women anything, and nearly getting caught, too. It's honestly fine if you don't think this is important, Sirius, but I do."

"Your family too, technically." Unhelpful, but he couldn't stop himself. Ginny kicked him, this time.

"Yes. Fine. Thank you, Sirius, for that observation."

"I just want to stick with you. It's dangerous. I don't want you going down there on your own."

He knew he'd said the wrong thing, as soon as he'd said it. Hermione's face transformed from one of mild annoyance with his overinflated ego to absolute anger. She jumped from the desk.

"Yes, because that's the way to a successful mission. Blow my cover by having some untidy, unknown idiot bumbling round the Ministry trying to protect me, when I'm not supposed to know about some big attack my cousin and his friends are planning?" If she was a dragon, she'd have been breathing fire by now. "Really helpful, Sirius. You'd think I'd never survived a war without you, before."

"Didn't Ron do this?"

"No. He didn't, actually. Ron, for all his many faults, allowed me to fight my own battles, because he wasn't a sexist pig and knew that I could handle myself. Just like you've been fine to do if it involved _our_ family!"

Hermione stalked off out the office door, closing it behind her with a bang.

"Hermione will be safe. You do not need to become involved in all of her fights," said Luna. "Her battles are her own to fight. And I will be down there with her."

"I know that."

"You know that and you do not know that."

"Luna," said Sirius. It was futile. She wandered off in turn, leaving Sirius and Ginny. Fucking Luna. She made both too much sense and not enough. And she'd got him talking like her.

"She's got a point."

"Which one of them?"

Ginny appeared to be weighing that up. "Both, probably. What made you think bringing Ron up was a good move? She misses him, you know. Bloody hell, Sirius, I'd have dumped you by now. Surprised she hasn't, sometimes."

"Hermione has infinitely more patience than you."

"Only because I have the patience span of a gnat."

"Even I know that isn't the Muggle saying."

"Oh, come on, you know how stroppy we both are. And you. We'd all be stuck in the house sniping at each other if not for Luna." Ginny checked the clock on the wall behind her. "You'd better get going, anyway. Off you pop. Go save the world with your boring but highly important Auror-minding." She winked at him. "Also, Hermione loves you, git. Drop the knight in shining armour act. She hates it, and she really can handle herself."

Sirius took Ginny's advice, and plodded out of the office himself. It was bloody lucky that Luna's colleague was almost never there. Any other department, they'd have worked out that three others were hiding in Luna's office plotting something. Well, maybe not Transportation. Transportation were always arguing about the Floo regulations.

He presented his best persona, the one that suggested that yes, he was absolutely supposed to be here, thank you very much. He'd even dug out some robes for the occasion, from a second-hand wizard wear merchant on Knockturn Alley. Aside from that little excursion, this was his first trip into the wizarding world since being kidnapped in December. He still had the scars from that one, and a significant chance of running into the people that had put him there.

They'd thought about Polyjuice, but it was difficult to refresh in an emergency. Luna was supposed to be here anyway, with her job, and Ginny would be called by the Order. Hermione had a good excuse.

It was him that was the weak link, and he'd dealt with this issue by changing the subject every time it was brought up. A terrible tactic, really, but surprisingly effective. Probably not great for long-term relationship harmony. Sirius was fairly sure this was his longest-ever relationship, already.

He'd resorted to some shitty self-Transfiguration so as not to get in anyone's way. His nose was larger than it had ever been, his hair shorter, his face lengthened. Nothing that would draw attention. But not a lot more, between Azkaban and his Transfiguration work. Thank Merlin's saggy testicles.

He turned up an infrequently used staircase, preferring not to be seen by the main lifts. The Auror Department was close enough by foot.

Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange were due to stand trial today. Hermione had a reasonable idea of the Death Eaters' plan; twin distractions in the Atrium and the Auror Department, leaving the best and brightest of the Ministry unable to react to the main fracas in the Wizengamot. As soon as they had stolen Bellatrix and Rodolphus, they would retreat. Preferably killing a few high-profile officials.

Sirius privately thought that the Death Eaters were losing it.

He wouldn't have said that to any of them, not to their faces. Thirty-seven-year-old Sirius had matured slightly. The other version of him running round this ridiculous building somewhere. And probably today, given half a chance.

Not even the Death Eaters had been stupid enough to attempt this sort of thing before.

Breaking cousin Bella out the Ministry of Magic. Hundreds of armed, and mostly trained, witches and wizards around. Limited exits. Disaster was written all over the plan.

Then again, approximately ninety percent of Death Eaters (ninety-three, according to Remus Lupin) were an unfortunate mixture of cruel, unstable, and stupid, so it was hardly a surprise they had come up with such a plan. But, honestly? Sirius had expected better of Voldemort himself. The man was supposed to be a genius.

Maybe he did love Bellatrix as much as Bella had always claimed that he did. Sirius had always assumed that to be just her raving again.

Sirius wanted nothing more than to kill Bellatrix. For what she did to him, in part, and to Hermione. And the stuff she'd whispered in Regulus' ear.

But then, maybe that came under Luna's warning not to try and fight Hermione's battles for her. Fuck that. He'd do it if he wanted to, and he was fairly good at lying. He could set it up as an elaborate accident that he'd killed cousin Bella.

He heard the explosion before he reached the Auror Department proper, somewhere in amongst desks of the Obliviation Squad.

Balls.

Bollocks.

Technically, it was a waste of fucking time to say two swears that meant the same thing, even in your own head, but this was an emergency and he didn't have time to come up with any better mental expletives. He was less imaginative in his foul language than he used to be. He used to be able to swear in French and Swedish. And accuse someone of being an Englishman in Welsh, which Remus assured him was the worst thing one could say.

He ran.

He darted in, just as someone began slamming the main doors to the department, wand drawn.

"Everyone, remain calm!" Some Auror was shouting. Well, shouting louder than the rest, anyway. There was so much noise, it was next to impossible to work out what was going on amongst all of it. Five different people seemed to be trying to take charge, including someone who looked suspiciously like a Death Eater in a not-so-cunning disguise.

Sirius crept to the edge of the corner and silenced a screaming receptionist. He was bloody annoying. In response, the bloke fainted. Sirius gently levitated him under his desk. It was probably the level of involvement the man could cope with, all things taken into account, and therefore even if he hit his head when he came to, Sirius wasn't going to regret it.

Oh, yes. There he was.

The Death Eater was in the crowd, looking exactly as if he belonged there, as per Hermione's intelligence. Auror robes, and all. Sirius did not know if he was in truth an Auror, probably, if he was not under suspicion immediately. Really, he thought, Hermione was an excellent spy.

He crept closer, moving himself into a crowd of receptionists and administrative assistants that was forming. It was a decent cover.

The Death Eater was eyeing a table in the centre of the room, which three Ministry witches were hiding underneath. Sirius watched from the corner of his eye, melding himself into the pile of receptionists. They hadn't signed up for this. They had every right to be squishing together as if that could save them.

Sirius stopped using them for cover. Instead, he crept behind an old cabinet. Mahogany, almost certainly in the 'antique' category. He could still see the Death Eater from here.

He, the dark haired Death Eater with the distinctive scarring on his left wrist, flicked his wand from hip-height, looking firmly in the opposite direction to the spell cast. Sirius was onto him. He cast his own spell, one of protection for the witches underneath the table that was shortly about to have something horrific happen to it.

The table exploded. The witches screamed, unharmed. Sirius tried his best to look as startled as the rest of them, and so did his opposite number.

"Lock the doors!" shouted the Auror who thought he should be in charge. "Nobody leaves until we know what's going on?"

"That's madness!" A young, brown-haired witch, an Auror by her robes, stepped forwards. "If there's attackers in here, they'll have free reign!"

"What, so we let them get out? Let whoever it is attack the rest of the Ministry? We are the brightest and the best! We can protect the Ministry!"

It was a rousing speech, really, except that Sirius recognised him.

Sirius recognised the handsome man with the slight beard perfectly as Antonin Dolohov.

Who, yes, admittedly, was an Auror, but he was a fucking Death Eater, too.

He was clearly a respected one. Several of the assembled witches and wizards were making their way away from the door. A few of the other Aurors nodded along to his words with set faces, their wands still drawn. The little brown-haired Auror did not agree.

"Half the people in here aren't trained Aurors," she continued. "They didn't sign up for this."

"The assailant could be hiding amongst them."

Yeah, he is, Sirius thought. And you fucking well know that, you dirty great bastard.

The brown-haired Auror opened her mouth to continue talking, but got no words out before her back was slashed open.

Shit. Sirius had been so busy watching Dolohov that he'd failed to watch the other one. And while Sirius had been not paying enough attention, he'd sliced the young Auror. Blood pooled on the floor where she had collapsed. The vast majority of the room stared round in panic, a blonde witch in a twinset screamed and fell to the floor on her knees. An old, wizened Auror and a tubby-middle aged receptionist ran towards the woman on the floor, wands at the ready, the Auror fumbling in his pocket for vials of potions.

Sirius knew that spell well enough to know that everything he had in his pocket was useless. The girl was dead.

He knew it, it was how they'd lost Marlene the first time around, anyway. Sliced by some spell of Dolohov's. Peter had found her after. He'd disappeared for a week.

"Who did this?" Some other Auror had taken up the young, dead woman's mantel. Sirius kept his eyes on the Death Eaters, this time.

What would Hermione do, he wondered. Or Luna. Ginny.

The Marauders would make an explosion of their own.

Carefully, so as not to provoke the suspicion of anyone, he bent down and gathered up several items from the floor, without much care as to what they were. A quill, a paperweight, and a miniature Appleby Arrows flag hit his hands first. He'd learnt these projectile spells in first year. A couple of non-verbal spells later, the little objects would be ready to fly off and make a big, annoying noise somewhere else.

He seemed to have time, the argument was continuing. A handful of more intrepid souls were sneaking back towards the door. A young Kingsley Shacklebolt was stalking through the crowd, no doubt set on finding the killer. On Sirius' side of the room, movement suggested at least one other Auror was acting similarly. Sirius swiped for a fourth object, his hand searching and finding one of those walking Quidditch figurines. Whoever this desk had belonged to was somewhat of a fan of the Arrows.

This thing he modified the charms on.

He let them lose in a single swish of his wand, just as the argument between Dolohov and the dead woman's argumentative replacement reached a crescendo.

The quill exploded above their heads, raining down the impression of smoke and flames. The paperweight, also Appleby Arrows themed, and the flag made their way to their detonation points, doing similar things. And the little Quidditch figurine, poor Jeremy Abbott, went straight for Dolohov's face and neck.

With a screech of pain the Death Eater went down. Sirius allowed himself a small grin of pleasure. It was for Hermione, and it was for Hermione no matter what Luna said about allowing his girlfriend to fight her own battles. Sirius darted for the door, blasting it open with the first, entirely overegged, spell that came to mind.

"Out!" he yelled. "Get out! Get to safety! Warn every other fucker, won't you?"

The vast majority of the people who had been in the room began to stampede past him, over half of the Aurors along with almost every member support staff the office held. Amongst the smoke and the dust and the flame, Sirius could just about make out Kingsley Shacklebolt, the old man who had attempted to heal the dead girl, and a secretary looking equal amounts of terrified and determined. And the wailing, writhing mess that was Dolohov, and the slowly grinning face of the other one.

His name hadn't seemed important up until now, but Sirius recalled it as Corban Yaxley. A friend of Bellatrix's, he remembered.

"Who are you?" Kingsley asked, his wand held out. "State your business!" It took a moment before Sirius realised the young Auror was talking to him.

"Nobody." Not his finest work. "I was hoping to get this permit filed," he pulled a roll of parchment out his pocket, a utterly pointless permit form Luna had prepared him as an alibi, "and I got lost."

"And then you cause explosions," said Yaxley. "And there's that Death Eater scum on the floor, but we think there was two." Yaxley indicated Dolohov with his boot. He was a remarkable actor, you could say that much for him.

"I was trying to help," said Sirius, lowering his wand and aiming for eccentric rather than deadly. "I'm a bit of a fan of experimental charms."

"We have our ways of making you tell the truth, son," said Yaxley, taking three steps forward. He was of a heigh with Sirius, and a similar shape, but the gesture was a threatening one. The other man intended to intimidate.

Sirius yanked up his sleeve.

The receptionist lost the determined look and screamed at the sight of the Dark Mark marring Yaxley's arm. Kingsley remained impressively calm of face, his wand shooting a Stunning Spell at Yaxley.

"How did you know?"

"Saw it." Admittedly, a good year or so into the future, but time was time.

"I don't trust you."

Sirius thought that was the most intelligent thing anyone had said all day.

"Good." He waved a hand expansively at the two Death Eaters on the floor. Someone had trussed up Dolohov, and likely Stunned him, too. "Bad idea to trust too many people, in a time like this." He wasn't sure that was the right thing, actually. "Find the ones you can and hang onto them, that's my advice."

"I'll need to take your name, not your advice. You look familiar."

Thankfully, Sirius had thought of one.

"Andrew Price."

"Okay." Kingsley looked distracted, ignoring the proffered clipboard and parchment that a harried woman with long hair was attempting to push his way. The parchment bore the title Incident Report across the top.

Downstairs, Sirius heard the sounds of another explosion, and a great deal of shouting.

"Shit." He and Kingsley swore simultaneously.

"Swear me an oath," said Kingsley, his wand trained on Sirius once more, his eyes flicking back and forth between Sirius and the door. "Swear me an oath that you're not part of this, and that you won't hurt any innocents today."

"I'm not," said Sirius, but he swore, anyway.

"I don't trust you," said Kingsley. "I know you from somewhere."

Sirius was, at that moment, slightly grateful for the changes his years in Azkaban had made to his face. Put him and the young Sirius side by side, and you'd see a resemblance, yes.

"Never seen you before," he lied.

Yet another explosion sounded from downstairs.

"If you turn out to be on their side," said Kingsley, his usual voice transforming into something harsh and cold, "then I will personally hunt you down until you are within Ministry custody."

Sirius shuddered. He knew Kingsley would absolutely follow through on that threat.

"Noted," he said. He waved his roll of parchment a little more, a bit redundantly. "I'll file this another day."

Kingsley was most of the way out of the door, anyway, leaving Sirius, the clipboard woman, and the slightly startled receptionist. The dead Auror was being carried into a side-room.

"Can you sign here?" asked the clipboard woman.

"Why?" asked Sirius, and wandered off in the direction Kingsley had gone.

The corridors were chaos. A set of Aurors were hurrying Ministry officials into a Floo connection next to the Muggle Artifacts office, arguing about the correct evacuation protocols. A portly man with an impressive moustache seemed to be trying to evacuate the entirety of his overstuffed filing cabinet. A tall, willowy witch was taking photographs. Arthur Weasley was bobbing around. Sirius ignored the lot of them, and began making his way through the warren of corridors towards the Atrium.

Regulus might be here.

Hermione would almost certainly be.

There was the slight matter of the other him, but Sirius was sure they could get around that.

He skidded slightly as he rounded a corner, almost toppling down a flight of stairs before clattering down them instead. It was at this point he realised Arthur Weasley was following him.

"You're going the wrong way!" he shouted, turning on a step halfway down and gesturing frantically with his right hand. "They're evacuating through the Floo upstairs!"

"I'm going to help," said Arthur. "It's Death Eaters, isn't it? They attacked my family."

Sirius floundered. He had no desire to prevent Arthur from fighting, not really. Of course the other man wanted to fight those who'd threatened his family. And another wand was always useful. But Ginny. If Arthur was killed, Ginny wouldn't be born.

"Stick with me," he said.

Arthur smiled.

"Arthur Weasley," he said, sticking out his hand. "Department of Misuse of Muggle Artifacts."

"No time for pleasantries," said Sirius, as below them the sounds of screaming and curses permeated the staircase. "And keep your bloody wand in your hand!"

Arthur said nothing as they both began to sprint down the stairs again, Sirius taking two steps at a time.

Ginny was on the bottom of the stairs, fighting some masked Death Eater. When faced by three of them, the Death Eater was quickly down.

"Thank you," said Ginny, and when Arthur wasn't looking, winked and stuck her middle finger up at Sirius. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean. She dashed off, and Sirius and Arthur followed.

The Atrium was one ginormous, chaotic, mess.

All around it echoed with shouts and flashes of light, both spells and that of Floo grates as witches and wizards attempted to make their escapes. Masked and robed Death Eaters formed a defensive circle in the centre, backs to one another, as Order members and Ministry employees battled them alongside a handful of members of the wizarding public. Groups of people hid amongst whatever they could find; upturned tables, bits of sculpture, the stand that usually sold the Prophet, the remains of the reception desk.

"Plan?" Sirius asked Ginny, almost forgetting that they didn't really know each other.

"Don't die," said Ginny, with a determined nod, and threw herself into the fight before an errant spell caught her unawares.

"Sounds like good advice," said Arthur, and joined his daughter.

Sirius twisted around the Atrium as he fought, looking for Hermione or for the exit. He needed a way down to her. She'd gone into the thick of it, against all his advice. And Regulus', too. He'd known what would happen, and told Hermione along with Narcissa Malfoy and Regulus' own wife to stay well away from the trials. But Hermione had planned to, in innocence, show up as a surprise to support him.

Luna was with her, thankfully, but he wanted to be.

He ran past Peter Pettigrew, firmly protecting a pair of fireplaces, covering those who were attempting to escape. Marlene McKinnon was doing the same, next to him, fighting someone that even with the mask Sirius knew was Regulus. Sirius wanted to congratulate Peter, and Marlene, for that matter, and possibly hex Regulus, but that couldn't happen. He continued running, past Remus and James, past Lily and Dorcas Meadowes.

He dashed through an archway dodging several curses as he did so. He looked like some member of the public running away, no doubt. Not any particular target. Screaming came from the room one side of him, and two figures stood in the corridor. Sirius darted into the room on the other side, able to work out exactly who it was from the sounds of their voices and a quick glimpse of their figures.

"I hear you're my cousin." The other Sirius stood with his wand by his side, but his pose was defensive. It was himself, after all, and Sirius knew exactly what his own body language said. "You'd better be sure which part of the family you're allying yourself with. Not sure your dad would approve."

"I never met my dad," said Hermione. Sirius knew her almost well enough, too. She stood proudly, projecting no small amount of power. "I do not know what he would think of me."

"He rejected them. Uncle Alphard was decent. They won't tell you that. They wouldn't want to lose anyone else. They lost me, they lost Andromeda, and him. They need you; the more they lose, the more it weakens them. My brother's trying to kill me."

"Why? What did you do to him?"

"I'm flattered you think it was my fault. Voldemort's orders, I heard. Did you know he works for Voldy, my precious little brother?"

"I do know what goes on within my own family."

"Really? Do you know how many people my brother has killed? Bet he doesn't tell you."

"We do not discuss politics."

She looked as if she was struggling now, but she'd kill him if he barged right in.

"Ha. No. Bet they don't let you. The Blacks aren't known for liking their witches with opinions."

"Lyra!"

"Oh, here comes said brother. Excellent. Been waiting for a chance to curse him. Mildly, of course. I, unlike others, don't kill my own brother."

Regulus' face was screwed up with hatred as he arrived on the scene, storming past Sirius' hiding place. His robes were less neat than usual, his mask lost, a bloodstain up his arm that didn't look like it was his own blood. "Sirius, do be reasonable. The Dark Lord has ordered you dead. If it were not me, it would be somebody much less clean."

"Fucking hell, be reasonable? Reg. Who on this fucking earth is reasonable about their own murder?"

"That is a fair assessment." There was a pause, the sound of the other Sirius snorting with derision." _Avada Kedrava!"_

A crack, the sound of a body hitting the floor, and then a gleeful laugh. One he recognised as his own and not his brother's.

"Nice try," said the other Sirius. "Try again."

Young Sirius was fucking cocky, Sirius realised. Overconfident. Honestly, a bit of a dick. But this wasn't really the time for self-assessment.

He dared to peer around the doorway, unsure what he should do. Hermione had said that she did not want him to fight her battles. Luna and Ginny had warned him against it. But was this her battle, or one between him and his brother, if a different version of him?

They were almost evenly matched in skill and power; Regulus with slightly more skill, Sirius slightly more raw power. Hermione was shouting, trying to intervene without resorting to magic, as the two tried as best they could to kill the other. Well, at the very least, Regulus Black was fighting to kill. The other Sirius, the other him, Sirius didn't know what he'd do.

What happened, he wondered, if your past self turned into someone that you didn't want them to be?

What happened if your past self was killed?

Shit.

This could all go disastrously. Why had he ever agreed to this?

Hermione screamed as a Killing Curse narrowly missed her, her Shield Charm useless against it. She raised her wand at the back of the duel, pointing it first at Sirius, then at Regulus.

Sirius had no idea what to do.

He decided for the only thing he could, and Stunned the other him.

Both combatants lay Stunned on the floor, but Sirius had only cast one spell, and Hermione's had been a Shield Charm between the pair of them.

"Who's there?" Hermione shouted. Her hair, plaited up onto her head in a style Lyra Black favoured, was beginning to fall loose. Sirius preferred it that way. "Who is it?"

"Me," said Sirius, at the same time as Luna appeared.

"Oh, it's only me," she said. "Thought that I heard Sirius. Which I did, but it was the wrong Sirius." She prodded the other Sirius with her shoe, a highly impractical glittery one. "Funny how that happens."

"You came to help me," said Hermione. "You Stunned Regulus?"

"No," he said. "I stunned me."

"Oh."

"I stunned his brother," said Luna. "I thought that it might help."

"I said I didn't need you to mind me," said Hermione. Sirius prepared himself for the inevitable bollocking, and possible dumping.

"I did say she would be safe," said Luna, which seemed entirely fucking unhelpful both then and now. "I am going to see more of the fight. I feel that I may be needed."

"What do you think you were doing?" Hermione hissed. She looked down at the two Stunned men. Brothers. You could see the resemblance even more with their faces blank and their bodies still, and without them spewing spells and hateful fucking bile at one another. "You could have got yourself killed!"

"So could you!"

"I couldn't intervene, I'd blow my cover, or I've have had to have cursed you!"

"Fuck your cover," he said, angrily, kicking out at the floor. "Fuck this shit."

"It was your idea to save everyone."

"I don't want to save everyone else and lose you! I've said I fucking love you, alright? I really do. I don't know when I got like this, but I don't know what I'd fucking do without you!"

"Language. You don't need to fight my battles, Sirius. But thank you." She looked down at the two figures on the floor again. "What are we going to do with these two? I fucking love you too, by the way."

That was better than it could have gone, Sirius thought.

"Dunno. Shift one of them, then wake them up?" He looked at Regulus, rather than himself, still slightly wary of what the other him could become. "I'll wake me, maybe? You take Regulus somewhere and do the whole concerned little pureblood girl thing?"

"Okay. Remember, Sirius. I hate your family, too."

"I know that."

"Yeah, you do and you don't, as Luna would say." She levitated Regulus with her wand, and turned, looking back at him over her shoulder. "We'd better hurry. The fight could come through here at any time."

She was right. This was no time for emotional scenes. He stood over himself as she levitated Regulus away, ready to put on her act. He hated it. He hated that he'd let her do this, but then, did he have any choice?

He'd always been willing to do anything to protect the people he loved.

Once he was certain she'd gone far enough, he stepped into the room he'd hidden in and pointed his wand around the doorway.

" _Reennervate."_

He heard swearing from the other Sirius, pulling himself up, and the sound of footsteps heavy and quick on the ground as the other Sirius ran back into the fray. The first Sirius, him, counted to twenty-two, intending to get to thirty but becoming bored and dashing after him.

The fight was all but over when he re-entered the Atrium. A handful of captured Death Eaters were Stunned and suspended in mid-air by a couple of Aurors. Two more lay dead on the floor, alongside an Auror and three people in ordinary clothing. None of them was anyone he knew. Ginny was nowhere to be seen. Luna was giving a statement to the woman who'd shoved a clipboard in his face up in the Auror Department. That seemed an age ago. Arthur Weasley was thankfully fine, nursing a graze to his arm but by and large unharmed.

Hermione was nowhere, either, but she was with Regulus. He didn't need to check on her. She would be fine.

He forced himself to remember that she might go back to Grimmauld Place, Ginny might go to the Order, Luna might remain at the Ministry. They all had their cover to maintain. They'd agreed it, all four of them. They wouldn't sent Patronuses to chase up people, in case it ruined the mission. Not that Sirius could. He'd go home, to the bag of Horcruxes, and he'd wait until he was needed.

He had little to no idea what else had happened in the battle. Whether Bellatrix and Rodolphus had been broken out of Ministry custody, whether his friends were fine, whether there had been deaths other than those he had seen. Whether Ginny was safe, though she had been when he left her. He couldn't contact her.

Next door, Jo's house, was occupied again, he noticed, as he Apparated direct to the garden. A woman stood in the window, illuminated by the electric light behind her. For a moment, he'd thought it was Jo herself. No grey hair, no, but there was something in the face shape that linked the two of them. But it wasn't, and the similarity was just a trick of the light. It was getting dark.

He went to open the back door.

By the time he looked back up at the window, she was gone. Just a new Muggle neighbour, looking out of the window. He was getting twitchy. He'd done this in the first war, it was normal, it was why the Order didn't let people go home on their own straight after a fight.

Sirius made himself a cup of tea.

The back door opened again.

"Hermione?" he said, at the sight of his girlfriend, half dressed in Lyra's clothes and half in her own. "Aren't you supposed to be with my brother?"

"No." She came and sat at the table next to him, taking a sip from his cup of tea. He pulled it back towards him. "I'm supposed to be here."

"Can't blow your cover."

"Regulus' Dark Mark burned, or I assume that's what happened. He's not there, and I'm not spending a minute longer than I have to with your mother."

"Nobody wants to do that."

"I would have come back here anyway."

"You said that the mission was important. You couldn't blow your cover."

"Yeah. I did. I say a lot of things, don't I? I love you, Sirius Black. I love you far more than I care about anyone in your family. Regulus is an entitled twat. Cissy cries all the time, I mean, her husband has died, so she's allowed to, but it's all she does. I never see your grandfathers. Your mother is horrible."

"Regulus absolutely is an entitled twat."

He leant back on the legs of his chair, tipping it, not really quite sure what to say next.

"I'm sorry I was an arse. I shouldn't have said any of that. I shouldn't try to make you pick me."

"You were. You shouldn't." She pushed the back of his chair so it went back onto four legs. "I'm sorry I was bossy."

"You were."

"Even, then?"

"Yeah. This isn't a normal romance, is it? It's not all flowers and shit."

She laughed. "I don't want flowers and shit. Well, the flowers would be nice, but not the shit. Anyway, I don't want normal. I don't want anyone else's romance. I want ours."

Sirius decided to buy her flowers, tomorrow.

"Can I show you something?" She fiddled with the locket around her neck, the one he'd bought so long ago, for her birthday. It opened to reveal photographs. He was expecting that, he'd added them himself.

They weren't his photos.

Harry had been forced over, Ron occupied half of his space, now. The two boys grinned, jostling for position with good humour. And Sirius' own face filled the other frame, laughing at something out of shot. A photograph he vaguely remembered Luna taking. He looked handsome, even if he did say so himself, in his gilt frame. She had chosen to put him there.

"I choose you," she said, as his fingers stroked the locket, snapping it shut, reaching to pull her towards him. She resisted, just for a moment. "But if you ever bring Ron up in an argument again, I'll set Ginny on you. No. Luna."

 _Regulus_

 _August 1979, Thetford Priory_

The Dark Lord stood amid the ruins of the old priory, his robes of black fluttering slightly in the breeze that blew around them. The sky was darkening, with shades of pink and orange peering from around the tumbledown stones at the horizon. Regulus could see only one star in the sky, the Dog Star. Sirius.

His brother.

He had once again tried to kill Sirius, and he had once again failed.

"My Death Eaters," began the Dark Lord, his voice magically amplified. "My followers. My most faithful. You have done me proud tonight, each and every one of you. You will be rewarded."

Bellatrix laughed at his side. She was beautiful still, if disarrayed, in the plain, rough grey robes worn by those held in Ministry custody.

The Dark Lord walked the circle, congratulating each Death Eater who had acquitted themselves well that day. He walked past Regulus. A knot in his stomach formed; he had not done what he set out to do. He had failed the Dark Lord.

"This place is one of power," he said, stepping lightly to the top of a large, flat pile of stones. The sign below it said that it had once formed the altar. Regulus knew nothing of Muggle religion, but he knew the world altar. "It appears as if it is Muggle, but it is not. This is a place of power much older than anything they are aware of, for they know nothing. Can you not feel it? Can you not feel the ancient magic flowing from the earth?"

Regulus tried. He could not.

"It is of no matter if you cannot. I do not expect it of all of you."

No, Regulus thought. Nobody expected it of Alecto Carrow, huffing away trying to reach for something that was beyond her understanding. Nobody expected it of Crabbe and Goyle.

"If I may have my prisoner now. Perhaps some of you that are more recently joined may recognise our guest this evening."

Regulus found that he did. His brother's friend.

"She is Marlene McKinnon, my Lord," he said, speaking up before Carrow or any of the others had their chance to get their voice in.

"My cousin knows!" Bellatrix shouted. Gently, the Dark Lord shushed her, before turning his attention back to the assembled.

"He does. He was instrumental in her capture. It is many years since I have had a member of the Order of the Phoenix captured alive. She will prove herself most useful."

Regulus had been. He'd subdued her, after the Dark Lord had said he wished for an Order member, alive. He'd handed her off to Selwyn when he had chased his brother.

"What is it you want to know?" asked Nott, pushing himself forwards. "I'll get her to sing, my Lord."

"I thank you for the offer, but I will not be requiring those services tonight. I require Miss McKinnon for something much more important than mere information, not that information itself is unimportant."

He paused, surveying his circle closely. His eyes lingered on Regulus.

"You may leave. Regulus Black, Severus Snape, I will ask of you to stay."

Several jealous looks were sent in the direction of Severus and Regulus, but Regulus paid them no heed. He stood, calm and still, as he awaited his judgement, the pops and cracks of the Disapparition sounding around him until they petered out. It was then that he looked at the Dark Lord, standing quiet and unmoving by the prone form of his prisoner.

"You are uncertain, Regulus. Tell me, do you think that the Dark Lord wishes to punish you?"

"My Lord," said Regulus, head bowed, "I do not know."

"Know," said the Dark Lord. "It does not do you good to prevaricate. The Dark Lord does not have patience for it."

"Yes," said Regulus. "I have twice now failed to kill my brother."

"Indeed. Have you tried as hard as you might?"

"No. I have not, my Lord."

"I see that is the truth. The Dark Lord is not pleased, Regulus." He was circling around Regulus. He was close; Regulus could hear his Lord's rattling breath, feel the movement in the ground as he walked. "Would you have me give this task to Severus? I am certain he would seek your brother out. I am certain that his end would be slow and painful, if relatively soon compared to what you may manage. Shall I do that, Regulus?"

"No, my Lord. No. I will kill my brother."

"Good. See that you do. If I have to call you to account again, you will see that Severus will be given the task instead. You come from a good family, Regulus Black. I see no reason to wish you gone from my employ. You have been exemplar, in all but this."

Regulus released the breath he did not know that he had been holding. His clenched fist relaxed out slightly, he raised his head an inch.

" _Crucio._ "

The pain hit him like nothing else he had experienced. His mother had used this spell if they were particularly unruly, but it had been nothing like this. If death had been offered, Regulus would have taken it, as the white-hot pain seared down his muscles and his bones, his head feeling as though it was being torn asunder by a thousand tiny knives.

It stopped. He was still upright. He had not soiled himself. Regulus knew that many woke from the Cruciatus on the floor with their undergarments damp, and for this, he was thankful.

"You take that well. You will do the Dark Lord proud yet, Regulus."

Regulus nodded. He had done well, to last a full year in the Dark Lord's presence without a punishment. He was still superior to Crabbe and Goyle, was he not? To Carrow? To the rest of them, who could barely last a week without being disciplined?

And yet he, in the end, fell to the same treatment. Perhaps his mother had been wrong. Perhaps his father had, too. He was, at the end of it, no better.

"I am going to ask both of you to assist me in something, tonight. Severus, you know what it is I require of you, and you know what the penalty would be if you breathe so much as a word of this to anyone, even those within our circle."

"I do, my Lord. I will obey you in every thing." Severus bowed and scraped, removing several vials of potion from his robes.

"Severus has a particular skill for the brewing of potions. And while I possess no small amount of that skill myself, I find my mind better occupied with things other than the cauldron. I thank you, Severus."

"Thank you, my Lord, thank you."

"The Dark Lord is merciful, Regulus. Severus here wishes me to spare a certain red-headed Mudblood. Lily Potter, as she is now, although I am certain that the new name riles our Severus so. He knows that if he continues to please, then she will be safe. I may even grant her to him, when I have eradicated the rest of the Order of the Phoenix. Look at me, Regulus."

Regulus did, looking up into the Dark Lord's grey-brown eyes. He knew that his thoughts were laid bare, when he did this, and he was only the smallest amount afraid.

"What is it you desire, Regulus? What is it that you would ask of the Dark Lord, when we have won?"

Regulus swallowed. "I ask only of you what I asked when I joined your cause. For my family to be strong again."

"Our cause, Regulus," the Dark Lord corrected. "It is for all of us to own what it is we are doing, is it not?"

"It is, my Lord."

"I believe, besides, that the power to do that resides in your hands, and yours alone, Regulus. You have helped us retrieve my Bellatrix. You have married, and will soon father a child, I am certain. You will kill your brother. He will not father any children that will sully the Black line. There is a risk that Sirius would marry a Mudblood, just to anger your family. Severus, do you agree?"

"Almost certainly, my Lord. Black seeks to discredit his family with his every action."

"Indeed. Is there any other reward you wish to ask of me, Regulus?"

Regulus shook his head. The Dark Lord was right. If he was to secure his family, he would indeed have to kill his brother. Else the Black line would become overrun with impure blood.

"In that case, I suggest that you do as I ask and ensure your brother's demise. The Dark Lord is merciful, Regulus, but no wizard had infinite mercy. I will ensure that you get your desire, as long as I get mine. If I do not…"

He let his words hang. He did not need to complete his sentence, as Regulus understood the meaning perfectly. If Regulus did not kill Sirius, then the Black line would certainly be in question.

"And now." The Dark Lord spoke as if nothing had occurred between them. "This evening, I find I must make a sacrifice. You will ensure that nobody comes here tonight, while I am otherwise engaged." He had drawn a locket on a long, golden chain from his pocket, and he placed it on the altar beside the young woman. "It will also, I think, serve as a demonstration of what we ought to do with our enemies. You know Miss McKinnon. You provided me with her name yourself."

"I did, my Lord."

"And tell me. What do you know of her? She fights for the Order of the Phoenix. What else?"

"She has been seeing the Pettigrew boy. Peter. They are close with the Potters, and my, and Sirius Black, and Lupin. The half-breed. They all fight in the Order of the Phoenix, them and Lupin's girl. Marlene McKinnon is a half-blood. Her mother is a witch who married a Mudblood. I do not know more than that. I have never paid her any heed."

"No, and as well you should not." The Dark Lord was circling McKinnon, his hand outstretched and lingering along the rocks. "Peter Pettigrew. Yes. Severus has told me of him."

Regulus knew that it was not his place to ask more, just as it was not his place to ask of the potions or of the significance of the necklace.

"I have found myself in need of someone like Miss McKinnon."

And just as it was his place not to ask any more now.

"You may watch. You may not ask questions. Do not allow anyone, Muggle or wizard, to approach here tonight."

"Yes, my Lord." Severus and Regulus spoke in unison.

They guarded the perimeter as the Dark Lord worked. He barely paid them any heed, standing at the head of Marlene McKinnon, casting spells and dousing her with potion, whipping up a magical storm that Regulus had never seen the like of before. The smells alone were powerful, stinking of magic, of corrosion. He was certain he smelt blood, the metallic tang of it being spilt on the stones. He heard the chant of ritual magic.

And Regulus wondered if he knew what it was that the Dark Lord was committing. He read, after all. He was a scholar of the Dark Arts as much as Severus was.

The magic formed a cloud around the Dark Lord and his sacrifice, a dark, ominous cloud, and Regulus inexplicably fought the urge to vomit. Something was forcing him away, an unseen force propelling him from the area. Regulus bent over, but did not allow himself to become sick. He was stronger than that.

The Dark Lord called them back to him, when he was finished, and Regulus walked over with his body straight and his mind full of no small amount of trepidation. What he saw was not a large surprise to him; he was intelligent, learned, and he understood what was sometimes required in war. The body that had once been Marlene McKinnon was impeccable. Dead, certainly, but appeared to the outside world as if she had died in her sleep, a Killing Curse expertly cast at the worst. Aside from the blood on the stone around her, there was no sign of anything having happened to her.

"I thank you both for your service."

The Dark Lord looked different, but exactly how Regulus could not ascertain. His eyes shone brighter, perhaps. He was paler, for a man that had never had much colour to his skin in all of his acquaintance with Regulus. But there was a quality to him that had not been there before, and Regulus did not entirely know what that quality was.

He looked for the necklace, on a whim, perhaps.

The Dark Lord held it in his hand, and it shone. A magical shine, that much was certain, and the smell to it, a metallic, acrid smell.

"You are interested in my locket, Regulus?" asked the Dark Lord. "As well you should. It is an ancient heirloom. It belonged to Salazar Slytherin himself. I have his blood in my veins. It is beautiful, is it not?"

"It is, my Lord."

"Indeed. And it is mine. Your service tonight has helped me transform it into something valuable far beyond its initial worth. Something that will benefit our cause, take me further into the reaches of greatness than any mere mortal has walked. I am done here tonight. Dispose of the body, however you deem it appropriate."

The Dark Lord disappeared, silently. No crack or pop of Apparition for him.

"You heard our Lord," said Severus. "We burn her."

"No," said Regulus. Peter Pettigrew, however little he was to Regulus, deserved to know what had happened to his girl. "We take her to them. A warning."

Sirius would see it. Sirius would know that Regulus mean business. Perhaps he would then have the sense to leave the Order of the Phoenix.

"Fine." Severus seemed unbothered, either way.

"Did you ask the Dark Lord for Lily Potter?"

"I do not understand what it is to you. You have what you wished for. You have your wife."

"I wish to understand. You appeared to be showing interest in my cousin."

"Lyra is worthy of my attention, but I am not worthy of hers. Your mother will never allow her to marry me. She will invoke the blood connection before she allows that to happen. Lily does not like me, but she did once. It is probable that she would again, without Potter, without this."

"I think I understand."

"You do not. You have the girl you wanted. You do not know what it is like to think that you have found love with someone, and for them to be taken away."

Regulus' thoughts turned to Francis. His blond hair. The way his hands lingered on Regulus' body even after they had been together, after they had dressed themselves again. The knot that had formed and pulled in Regulus' gut when Francis had told him that they could no longer continue as they had been.

He said nothing to Severus.

"We had best get this done," Severus said.

They cleared the body in silence, save for the occasional instruction or confirmation. Both knew where the Order's headquarters were located, even if they had no hope of gaining entry. They Apparated the corpse as close as possible without triggering some kind of ward or defensive enchantment, and sent up the Dark Mark. And then they left, to different locations, with no acknowledgement of the other save a nod.

Regulus went to the library on his arrival back at Grimmauld Place. Kreacher skulked around his feet until Regulus sent him away, a redundant errand for a drink and some laundry just to get the elf out from under his feet. He wished to know what it was that he had witnessed that evening, even if he was somewhat certain that he knew the truth of it.

He was a scholar. Regulus had enjoyed books from an early age. Not for their own sake, he had never had an interest in fiction, but for the acquisition of knowledge. While the other boys in Slytherin had talked in the main of girls from at least fourth year, Regulus had never had much to say. He had known he would marry a good one, and in the meantime, it was not much of worth to talk of the Mudblood he had slept with, and he could not talk of Francis. He had preferred talk of Quidditch, or of magic.

The Black family had always had an exceptional library. Pollux had an interest in Dark Magic, and Regulus was certain he had read of the ceremony used tonight before.

When he had an idea of something, Regulus generally wished for his theory to be the truth. On this occasion, he was not sure that he did.

He scoured the bookshelves, looking for the tome that he thought he remembered. Kreacher returned with a bottle of Firewhisky and a single glass, and Regulus dismissed him again. He continued down the row, and finally he found the one he had been searching for.

Horcruxes.

Regulus sat in the armchair he favoured, a healthy measure poured from the bottle.

He had been correct. The Dark Lord had made himself a Horcrux. He was, in all certainty, looking to make himself immortal.

He had already done so, with the shine and the reek of the locket declaring it's status as a container for the Dark Lord's soul to anyone who had the knowledge. He had done so with preparation, without a moment's hesitation. It was as if he had known for some months that this was what he wanted to do.

Regulus stood up, replacing the book to its correct location on the shelf. He went to the window, came back, poured himself a fresh measure of the Firewhisky, and went back to the window. The world was waking up, the first Muggles crawling out of their homes in Grimmauld Place to head to work. One, a young woman with her shoes in her hand, crawling home.

And he, Regulus Arcturus Black, up since the dawn before, having helped his lord and master become immortal. Having been complicit in the ritual sacrifice of a woman, his brother's friend. Having attempted to kill his brother.

Regulus had killed. He had no particular shame that he had done that. It had been necessary. Regulus had simply done what needed to be done, and there was no need for dramatics.

The Dark Lord had merely done what needed to be done. Regulus wished to save his family. The Dark Lord wished for immortality. And the continued existence of a family line, pure and unbroken, was that not a form of immortality in of itself?

The Dark Lord had required just one thing of him to ensure that Regulus got his wish. Or there would be certain consequences. His own death, perhaps, Regulus realised. The Dark Lord had killed followers before. Had he not ordered Regulus to do just that, and Regulus had complied? And he was the last male of the Black line. With him gone, the line would be dead, unless his father had more pure children, and perhaps the Dark Lord would ensure that such a thing could not happen. Lyra, too, perhaps. Narcissa was a Malfoy, Bellatrix a Lestrange, Andromeda was gone. Severus would kill Sirius.

Regulus was, perhaps, in deeper than he had planned to become.

Just as he was contemplating this, the door opened.

"Regulus? Kreacher said you were here. Whatever are you doing drinking at this hour? I do despair, I really do, and you smell of blood and fire, oh, I could be sick at the smell of you!"

"Adeline! Whatever is the matter?"

She looked flushed. Exhausted and as if she could run for miles at the same time. Her face was pale, her hand held across her stomach as if protecting something. Her robe was disarrayed, her hair loose and without the styling she was never seen without.

It had been exactly one month since their wedding night.

"I missed my bleed," she said. "I could not bring myself to test until now, but I have been up all night, so I did. And, oh, Regulus, I am carrying our child!"

He blinked, once, twice, three times.

"You are with child? My child?"

"It isn't going to be anyone else's, is it? Your child, Regulus! You are to be a father!"

He drank the rest of the glass in one swallow, barely feeling the burn of the alcohol.

"I am pleased."

"I hope for a son, don't you? We could name him for your grandfather. Pollux Regulus Black, don't you think?"

"Yes," he said. "But let us not be hasty in naming the babe. We may yet have a daughter."

"Yes, yes, of course we might," she said, approaching him, wrapping her arms around him. "I will love him or her, whoever she is."

"And I will too," he said. He allowed himself to embrace her back, kissing her on the cheek as he buried his head into her hair. "I will protect you and them."

He would have to, in this world that he was helping to create. In this mess that he had somehow allowed himself to be dragged into. The choices he, and he alone, had made for himself. He would protect her, and the baby, from his own Dark Lord as well as from the Order of the Phoenix and from the rest of the wizarding world.

He would have to kill his brother, and quickly.

It was at this point, as he reached his hand onto Adeline's stomach, to feel where the baby was forming itself under the flat expanse of her belly, that he realised that he had no desire to kill Sirius.

The dog star shone out when he glanced out of the window, the last star to remain in the early morning sky.


	46. Chapter 46: Fallout

**Chapter Forty-Six: Fallout**

 _Remus_

 _August 1979, Order Headquarters_

"Who's missing?" James asked, darting from one returning Order member to the next, his eyes as wild as his hair. "Have you seen Lily?"

Remus suspected that was what his first question was all about, really.

She arrived back twenty minutes after James and he calmed considerably. A touch of her hand on his, a kiss, and his darting around turned to pacing up and down the crowded kitchen. Somehow, there was room for him to do it, even though most others were barely able to move. They all had their tics. Sirius was drinking. Peter was being far too loud, telling a series of less and less funny anecdotes to Lily and Philomena. Remus was picking the hem of his jumper, unravelling it, hoping to be still wearing some of the woollen thing when the last of the Order made it through the door.

"Moody's still with the Aurors," Dorcas said, handling the situation with her usual stoicism. "We aren't expecting him. Gideon's accounted for, too. He's gone back to work, he was due on shift this evening, and he needs his job. What about Fabian?"

Nobody had seen Fabian. He'd survived all sorts, Remus thought. He'd be fine.

Nobody had seen Marlene, either.

"Okay," said Dorcas, standing on the kitchen table, eventually calling them all to attention. The members of the Order, who had spilled out into the corridor and living room as more arrived from the Ministry, crowded back in, hemming James into a corner and forcing him to stop pacing. "Albus has been called in by the Ministry, and Moody's there too, so you've got me doing the debrief tonight. We did well, folks. Bellatrix may have escaped, we think we have that verified, but Moody says Rodolphus is still firmly in Ministry custody. There's a few more in there as of today, as well, and a couple dead. You all know what I think about that, although don't tell Albus."

She winked, pausing to survey her room. They knew they'd done well, all of them, but the tone of the room was still muted and sombre. Dorcas' enthusiasm was almost entirely faked. They knew who they were missing, now.

"We've got almost all of our lot accounted for, but we're missing a few. So I'm going to call out the names, and if you've been hiding somewhere in this house, shout up. If not, we'll divide up, and go looking. Right. Marlene. Has anyone seen Marlene?"

"Someone grabbed her," said Caradoc Dearborn. His face was scratched and grazed all down the left side, ugly and swollen. "A Death Eater."

"No," said Peter. His voice grew stronger. "No. That isn't what happened."

"What did you see?" Dorcas asked, pushing up the sleeves of her shirt. "Peter?"

"Nothing," he said, his lip trembling. "I didn't see anything. We were guarding the Floo, making sure people got out. A woman fell down, so I pulled her up, someone started cursing me. I didn't see anything. But the Death Eaters don't have her. They can't."

"Okay, thanks, Peter," said Dorcas. Peter wobbled, and Lily and Philomena grabbed him and helped him to a seat, turfing Dedalus Diggle out. "She might have been taken. She might not. We'll find her. Has anyone seen Fabian Prewett?"

"He's dead," said Hestia Jones. Her voice was impressively steady. "Saw it myself. The Emergency Healers took him off to St Mungo's, last I saw, but an Avada to the chest…" She trailed off, looking hopeless.

"Right. Thanks, Hestia. We'll send someone out there later to do a recce. For him and Marlene. I think that's everyone we're missing."

"What about Emmeline?" Caradoc again.

"She wasn't there, was she? I'll double check, but as far as I know, she's still out on the thing in Scotland with the strict do not disturb slapped onto it."

"Okay," said Caradoc. "I'll check that with Albus, if you want?"

"Excellent." Dorcas was back in business mode. You'd think she was managing something far less, well, emotional than what she was, but Remus knew her well enough to know that even she wanted to punch something. "Let's get organised. Anyone who's injured, no matter how minor, get into the living room. Caradoc, that includes you. You can get everyone organised into a rough assembly line; worst injuries first, then minor scrapes. And see Albus afterwards."

About a third of those assembled trooped off into the living room, mostly reluctantly. Dorcas addressed those who were left.

"Anyone who's done in, or needs to be somewhere else, feel free to go, as well. We've got some tidying up to do, but only volunteers, and only those who're definitely going to be able to keep going for another few hours."

It was at this point that she let her emotions get the better of her, and a tear leaked out of her eye. She covered it by swinging herself down off the table, pulling out a recently vacated seat, and pushing her sleeves up again.

"Where do we start?" asked James, always the first to volunteer.

"A couple to St Mungo's. Philomena, could you go? You're Fabian's cousin, you can say you're looking for him. Not that I disbelieve you, Hestia, but let's get our official confirmation. And we can ask about Marlene, too."

"I'll go with her." Peter stood up, rubbing his hand through his hair, his face pale.

"Thanks, Peter. That makes sense. Now, I need someone to go to the Ministry. Lily, perhaps? You and Marlene are friends. You can make up some reason for her having been there, yes? And James with you?"

"Of course," said James. Lily nodded.

Dorcas continued handing out instructions; Remus waited. He picked at his jumper.

He forced his way across to Philomena and Peter when Dorcas had finished, stomping her way out the room in her heavy boots to tend to the walking wounded. Phil was ready, her Holyhead Harpies t-shirt slightly singed but, as always, unharmed. Peter shook slightly.

"I'll come with you," he said. With what he hoped was a casual air. "Can't sit around here waiting for things to happen, I'll go mad."

"Won't we all?" said Phil.

He couldn't face letting her out of his sight.

They Flooed from Headquarters to the Leaky Cauldron, to the Hog's Head, and then, with a nod from Aberforth at the bar, from there to St Mungo's. Phil took the lead, used to the subterfuge by now. Remus shoved Peter in between the two of them, each time. However much he wanted to attach himself to his girlfriend, Peter was the one in the shit here. Remus' girlfriend had come back.

"Why do we have to make up a story?" asked Philomena, as they stood by the reception desk waiting for the queue to settle. Half of wizarding Britain seemed to be searching for loved ones here, who'd been caught up at the Ministry today. The other half were probably out, frantic, at the Ministry.

"Can't admit we're from the Order," said Remus. "Hestia Jones used to work for the Prophet. She got sacked when they found out she was a member. Dedalus Diggle, too, from the Ministry. Who else?" He turned to Peter, who was tapping the floor with his foot, a tic inherited from James. "Oh, yeah. Caradoc. He was working for Tom in the Leaky. Even Tom wouldn't keep him on when he was photographed fighting a Death Eater."

"It's dangerous," said Peter. "It's dangerous being in the Order. It's dangerous associating with someone in it."

Phil leant against the wall, resting a foot against it. A pose adopted from Sirius, in her case. "Fucking hell, it's all going to hell in a handbasket."

"Muggle phrase, that." Remus always noticed them. His mother had been full of them, the phrases and truisms and little sayings. It gave him a funny twinge whenever he heard them. A reminder that he ought to go back and see them, that he had once had a life before all of this war.

"Brought up by them, wasn't I?"

They lapsed into silence. Philomena drew some knitting from her bag, and began to make it knit in the middle of the air. Peter stared at his own tapping foot. The sound was beginning to drive Remus up the wall, but it wasn't about him, was it?

"Chances are," said Philomena, slowly, "she'll be here. He'll be here."

Chances were just as strong that they would be dead, but Remus didn't say that. There had been people everywhere, and Caradoc had seen her be snatched, and nobody had seen anything to prove otherwise. Hestia had seen Fabian hit with the Killing Curse, and there wasn't anyone alive who had survived that. And nor would there ever be. Remus wasn't a pessimist, whatever James said. He was a realist.

Death Eaters liked information, and they liked to kill their captives if they wouldn't talk. If they would, they killed them after.

It was shit. It was unfathomably shit, and it wasn't what he wanted to have happened. Not for Marlene's sake, or for Peter's, or for anyone else's. But it was the most probable truth.

"Next."

Phil bounded to the desk, the knitting bobbing along beside her.

"I'm here, oh," she said, her hands a flurry of confusion. "My cousin was up at the Ministry today, I want to know if they've found him?"

"Name?" The welcome wizard was anything but welcoming, in Remus' opinion.

"Fabian Prewett."

"No. Yours."

"Oh. Yes, sorry. Philomena Prewett."

"And Marlene," said Peter, butting in. "Marlene McKinnon."

"And you are?"

"Peter Pettigrew. Marlene's fiance."

A couple of taps, and a selection of parchment flew out towards the welcome wizard. "She's not here. He is. Died half an hour ago, according to what we have."

"Shit." Remus was the only one to speak, and the welcome wizard gave him a frustrated look.

"You are?"

"Does it matter? My girlfriend's cousin has just died." Remus hated officialdom. He glared at the welcome wizard and led Peter and Phil off, where she could cry and Peter could fidget in peace.

"I don't even know why I'm crying," she said, wiping her eyes on a slightly stained handkerchief Remus had managed to produce from his pocket. She grabbed her knitting out of the air and rammed it back into her bag, slumping into a chair.

"He's your cousin," said Peter, "of course you'll cry." He stood beside her, hands in pockets, shuffling from one foot to another in his grey trainers.

"He's not - well, he is, but I didn't really know him," she said. "I didn't know him or Gideon. I don't know anyone who's dying in this shit well enough, not at all! Marlene! I didn't know here either."

"Marlene isn't dead," said Peter. "You heard them, she isn't here."

Remus still thought that she probably was. If she wasn't here, and if James and Lily came back with nothing from the Ministry, there wasn't many other places she could be. Not without having contacted them. Someone always sat at Headquarters, waiting for people to come back or to send a Patronus, and there had been nothing from Marlene. No, Remus thought she was dead.

It wasn't that he wanted her to be dead. But this was a war. People died.

"Peter," said Philomena, shoving the handkerchief into her jeans pocket where it bulged out. "What if she is?"

"She isn't. She can't be. We're going to get married, like James and Lily. We've chosen the name of our first child. Second, too, if we have a girl and a boy, or two boys, but we can't agree on a second girl's name. She has to be alive, you see. We have to decide on a second girl's name!"

Phil glanced at Remus as if for reassurance, but he didn't know what to say, either.

"Peter," she said, and put her hands on his shoulders, as if buying herself some time to work out something to say. Something that negated quite how terrible a day this was, something to allay the fear that was building in Peter as surely as it did in Remus. "Peter. Let's go back. Let's go and see what Lily and James have found. She might be at the Ministry."

She glanced at Remus again, and her eyes confirmed that she thought the same as he did. Marlene was probably dead. Fabian definitely was. Bellatrix Lestrange had escaped, despite their efforts. It was all a crock of hippogriff dung, to say the least.

They went back. Phil found Peter something to do, supervising Dorcas' patients with her. Remus sat in the corner of the living room, watching Peter fuss over bandaging someone, Philomena arguing with Caradoc.

"You've broken six bones, I don't know, do you think you're fit to Apparate?"

Remus sat in his corner, turning a cheese sandwich Sirius had made over and over in his hands. He'd taken a single bite of it. The bread was stale, the buttering uneven, it tasted like shit. He wasn't hungry, not at all.

"Alright?" James came over, also clutching a Sirius-made sandwich. "Nothing at the Ministry, nothing at all. Just chaos. Albus is closeted away with the Minister, nobody knows what's going on, and Moody's going nuts in the Auror Department about the treachery of Antonin Dolohov and about some guy named Andrew Price." James sighed, sinking down onto the floor rather than conjuring himself a chair. "We said that about Dolohov, ages ago. Don't you remember? No clue about Andrew Price, though. Don't you know someone in the Records Department who can check him out for us?"

"Yeah," said Remus. "So no Marlene?"

"No. She's not been seen there, not since the actual fight. Fuck. Who's going to tell Peter?" James and Remus looked over at Peter together, now talking in hushed tones to Dorcas. James tore his eyes away and took a bite from his sandwich, instead, running a hand through his hair. "Sirius can't cook for shit, but I'd thought even he would be able to make a sandwich."

By the time Remus made his way over to Peter, having been delegated as the one to tell him, his friend was deep in conversation with his girlfriend. Remus pushed down the familiar stab of jealousy. Yes, he had always been the Marauder with the least lasting interest from girls. Yes, they'd gone out with girls he fancied more than once. But Peter wouldn't steal Philomena from him. He wasn't a betrayer.

"I like that," she was saying. "Holly's a lovely name."

"Thanks," said Peter. He caught sight of Remus and did a sad little half-wave. "Any news?"

"Lily and James say she's not at the Ministry."

"Oh." He blinked three times in quick succession and dropped his head, the picture of dejection. "She could still be alive. She could."

Philomena put her arms round him. "If she is," she said, "we'll find her. If not, we'll be there for you, Peter. All of us. You've always got us, you know that. Always." She shut her eyes, as if trying to block out the room, block out everything that was going on. The checked carpet, the patched up floral sofa she was sitting on, the hole left by Marlene.

"It's my fault," he said. "I wasn't watching her all the time. She… I didn't see her go."

"Nobody's fault," said Remus.

"He's right," said Philomena, as Peter buried himself into her neck, and Remus deflected that stab of jealousy again. "We can't go blaming people. That's how things go to shit. If we blame each other, we'll not trust each other, and Voldemort will ruin us."

They reconvened in the kitchen, the Marauders, Lily, Philomena, and Dorcas. The patients were sleeping it off, Caradoc had been given the all-clear to visit Albus. The rest of the Order were scattered keeping their covers.

"We'll check her house," said Dorcas. She was sipping her fourth coffee, her body half-slumped onto the table as she drank it, her eyes ringed with the dark circles. "Your place, too, boys, in case she's gone looking for Peter. Is there anywhere else she might have gone?"

"She lives with her parents," said Lily. "She's got an aunt in London, but I don't know where."

"Start with her house," said Dorcas. "I'll find out where her aunt is, though I doubt she'll have gone there."

"Stay here," Phil said to her. "You're exhausted."

It was three o'clock in the morning. They all were exhausted, truth be told, but Remus wasn't planning to sit around. Sirius was the only one left in the room who looked to have any energy, picking all of the green and yellow ones out of a box of Every-Flavour Beans and flicking them at the wall.

"Aren't we all?" said Dorcas, in response, but she didn't deny the claim.

"Okay," said James. "Who's coming? Me, Sirius, Remus? Phil, you coming?"

"I'm going," said Peter.

"Peter, no, don't you think you should stay here?" asked James.

Philomena snorted. "Really? You'd be okay with staying at home if it was Lily missing, James? Remus, you'd stay here if it was me? Sirius, how'd you feel if it was Her-" she looked to be stopping herself from saying something, to Remus' eyes, "whoever you were seeing?"

"I'd be there with you all, obviously," said James. "Course I would. But Peter's not great in duels, and if we need to fight, he'll panic. We don't know if there might be Death Eaters."

"Peter's getting better," said Remus, in an attempt to be fair, even though he still want sure it was a good idea. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter leave the room. "I saw him tonight, he was doing well."

"He'll panic," James repeated, although he looked less convinced than he had.

"He'll never forgive you if you don't let him," said Philomena, crossing her arms. "You treat him like he's not as good as the rest of you."

"No," said Sirius, but Remus interrupted him.

"We don't," said Remus. He didn't think they did. "But you're right. We should let him come along. James, she's right, you'd never stay behind if it was Lily."

"Fine." James looked mutinous. "Someone go get him, wherever he's got to. Why's he disappeared, anyway?"

"Work it out," snapped Philomena, and left to follow Peter.

It was all of them, in the end, that went to Marlene's house. The sky was pitch black, the same as the general mood of the group. Lily wasn't talking to James, who looked as though he might hex someone, anyone. Sirius was stalking the edge of the group, as he always did the moment an argument entered their ranks. Peter hung close. Phil shrugged off anyone's touch, clearly thinking about something else. How she could, Remus didn't know.

"We've got to stick together," was all she had said when he had asked her what was wrong. "You have. The four of you. You have to stick together."

He found himself once again wondering if she had the Sight, or something, because it was as if she knew something that she did not want to admit to.

In the end, it didn't matter that they'd brought Peter, because there wasn't any fighting to do.

There was nothing.

"Marlene?" asked her mother, her pale green dressing gown thrown on over a nightie. "She's staying with you tonight, Peter? That's what she told me. You haven't had an argument, have you? The engagement's still on?"

"It is," said Peter.

"If she's not dead," said Sirius.

There was nothing at home, either. James combed the upstairs with Lily, their hands joined the entire time. Fruitlessly, Remus and Phil checked downstairs, while Sirius and Peter combed the garden.

"Nothing," said Sirius.

"No," said James. "Nothing."

At Headquarters, the Dark Mark shone over the building.

Peter was the first to break the ranks of the group, running forward with his wand out and a look of such sheer determination on his face. Remus followed, with Phil at his side, James and Lily, Sirius close behind.

"Where do you think?" James asked. "In there? Out here?"

"Can't be in," said Sirius, spinning around to check behind him. "Dumbledore's wards are too strong!"

Lily gasped.

"Marlene!" she screamed. "Marlene! She's there!"

Peter and Lily ran for her, James and Phil swirled to protect them. Remus and Sirius advanced, both checking with one another as they crept around the perimeter. He didn't want to let Philomena out of his sight, but, he had to do this.

"Nothing," said Sirius. "They've gone."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"I can't believe she's dead." Sirius kicked a rock, sending it scattering off into the trees that edged the property. "They've fucking killed her. They tried to kill me, now they've killed her. Who's it going to be next, Remus?"

"Could be any of us," said Remus, because that was the truth.

"Do you think Regulus will succeed? In, well, you know."

"No." Remus didn't have a bloody clue.

Peter refused to leave Marlene's side, even after Dorcas, roused from sleep after only half an hour of it, confirmed that she was dead. They took it in turns to sit with him. Remus had nothing to say, nothing that sounded like anything worth saying. Nothing that would even touch the sides of what he wanted to express, of what Peter was feeling. They played cards.

"I hate this," said Philomena, in the bedroom they'd borrowed from Dorcas. She stood at the window, he sat at the bed. "I thought we were done with death."

"It's a war," he said. "People will die. The people we care about don't have immunity. Everyone always thinks they'll be the one to survive a calamity, don't they? The hero always survives, and usually his closest friends, and they're the hero of their own story. But that isn't how all of this works. Is it?"

"No." She came and sat down on the bed, in borrowed pyjamas. Pink, clashing with her hair. "Remus? I love you."

Shit. He'd thought that he'd have something poetic to say at this point in a relationship, but he didn't.

"I love you, too."

She smiled.

"You're right, you know," he said. "We need to trust each other. If we stop doing that, they win."

"They do," said Philomena. "But they won't. Not this time."

"Not this time," he said. And for a moment there, in spite of their day, their night, he believed her. "If you were to have children, what would you call them?" he asked.

 _Hermione_

 _August 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

Ginny's horse Patronus burst into the room, the afternoon after the Ministry, galloping in mid air through their plans and notes still pinned to the wall, some of them looking the worse for wear.

"Be home soon," it said. "Marlene's dead. I'm fine, though."

Ginny had a tendency towards flippant, stating these highly serious facts in a way that made you think she was remarking on the weather, or asking you what you'd like to eat for tea.

"Shit," said Sirius.

"Yeah." She didn't know what else to say.

"And the Prewett. Luna saw that."

"Yeah." She reached up and stroked his hair, longer than it had been, but still as soft. Was it so terrible that, while she mourned every death she heard of, she was also so incredibly grateful that it wasn't him?

He seemed to feel the same, somehow, as his arm curled around her.

An owl collided with the window.

Hermione unwillingly untangled herself from Sirius to let the bird in. A letter, her name written in neat, italic script on the front, was clutched in it's claws. She took it, letting the dazed little owl hop onto her arm.

"I haven't got much for you," she said. "I'll see what I can find in the kitchen."

"Who's writing to you?" asked Sirius, the moment she came through the door from feeding the owl half a cracker. He was aiming for casual, but failing.

"Adeline Black," she said. "Regulus' new wife."

"Oh." He relaxed back onto the sofa. "Why?"

"She says that she'd like to invite me for tea. Well, Lyra. Not me."

Hermione had to remind herself of all of this. She wasn't that girl that the Black family seemed to like so much. She was herself. She wasn't that girl, also, because that girl was Sirius' cousin, and, well, she'd never found the idea of having sex with your cousin at all appealing.

"You'd better go, then. When is it?"

"Today."

"Okay."

"Do you mind if I go?"

She'd never asked him that before, preferring to assume that he didn't mind, even though she knew that he probably did.

"A little bit. But go."

"I actually quite like Adeline." She perched herself on the arm of the sofa, a rebellious act to her, and one that Ginny and Sirius both did constantly. "She's nice. She's not like the rest of them. Remember I told you, at their wedding she asked me to stop him from getting killed, basically. Because she thinks he won't be able to kill you."

"He tried fairly hard yesterday. The other me."

"Yes, he did. But that wasn't my point. It was about her."

"Okay." He looked interested, rather than irritated, which Hermione thought was a good sign. Given that they were talking about his family.

"She's going to be useful, isn't she?" said Hermione, going for the tack Sirius would find most palatable. "She doesn't want him dead. She's not going to mind me hanging round, using her as an excuse, asking her for information, whatever it is I need to do to make sure I'm there at the right time."

"Because we don't know when the right time is." Sirius flicked imaginary dust from the arm of the chair. "Could be now."

"It isn't," said Hermione. "He isn't there yet."

But it was essentially true, what Sirius had said. They didn't know when it would be that Regulus might decide to go to the cave, and they were skating on thin ice as to whether he would do it at all. The circumstances had to be exactly right, and they didn't know what had happened before to replicate it, not exactly, and everything was changing around them and around him. All they had was a date, sometime around her birthday, the middle of September. A date, and the involvement of Kreacher.

"I'll have to talk to Kreacher, won't I?" she said, more to herself than to Sirius. "At least he's nice to me, these days."

"He'd still hate me," Sirius grumbled. "As would mother. Blood traitor. Shame of her flesh. Disgrace to the name of Black. You know it all." He flicked a the sofa again. "Might get a portrait of myself made and deliver it to her. Then portrait-me can shout obscenities at her. I know far more inventive insults than she does."

"That's true. I don't know that it's anything to be particularly proud of."

"I was taught that having a large vocabulary is a positive trait."

"I doubt they meant of swearing."

"Nobody ever specified, Hermione. Nobody ever specified."

She had never particularly loved hearing her name. It was too often mispronounced, or made fun of, or someone referenced the damn Shakespeare character. But when she spent so much of her time being somebody else, she loved it. Hermione. The sound of it on his tongue, knowing that so few people used her name in this time.

"You're incorrigible."

"I know." He leaned forwards, kissed her and toppled her off the arm of the sofa onto his lap. "I can even spell it."

She arrived through the Floo at number 12, Grimmauld Place a handful of hours later, trying with all her might to look as though she did not just have incredible sex with their estranged brother, son, heir. She dusted herself down, took a moment to check her robes and her hair, and adopted Lyra's posture before calling for Kreacher. It would not do to look as though she did not belong.

It would not do to bring disgrace to the good name of Black, after all.

Kreacher took her through to Adeline, in a decadent sitting room, with much bowing and scraping.

"Young Mistress, Kreacher is having other young Mistress for you now, he is."

"Thank you, Kreacher," said Hermione. Keep the elf on her side. He'll be useful. Not just because it was the right thing to do. He couldn't help the way he'd been raised, now or in her past. His future.

"Lyra!" Adeline was as poised as ever, her hair up in a do on the top of her head and dressed in forest green. But she moved too quickly towards Hermione. Her smile was too wide to be entirely genuine. "Kreacher, we will require nothing of you."

The tiny, wrinkled elf left, with more bowing.

"Adeline, it was so nice of you to invite me to take tea with you." Hermione took her seat, waiting to be poured for. Adeline did not move towards the teapot.

"There is something wrong with Regulus," she said. The poise she had managed to pull together in front of Kreacher was disappearing. "I don't know where else to turn."

"What is it?" August was too early. It couldn't be his defection, not yet.

"He went to the Ministry yesterday. I thought it was to testify on behalf of Bellatrix, I didn't know that they had something planned! I know what he is, I know what she is, but I didn't know this. He came back, late, I knew something was wrong. He smelt of death, you see. And he, his behaviour, the way he was, he was all wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"My husband has killed men before, I am certain of it. He has seen death. And I am certain that he saw it last night. You were there, he said that much. His brother, too. Perhaps you know more than I do, of what could have made him look as if he would up and leave."

Hermione shrugged, a gesture most unbecoming of a lady. Or so Walburga told her, frequently.

She poured herself and then Adeline a cup of tea, entirely against etiquette, because she didn't think the other woman would do it if left to it. And she used the time to ponder how much she wanted to say. She knew Marlene McKinnon was dead, although not if Regulus had taken any role in that. And Fabian Prewett. And others injured. She knew what had happened with him and the other Sirius, and Regulus knew that she knew about that.

She sipped her tea. The hardest part of this subterfuge, besides having to be friendly with Sirius' mother, was keeping straight exactly who knew which facts.

"I watched him try to kill his brother," she said, eventually.

"I had wondered if that was it." Adeline began to drink her own tea, as if nothing had been said at all. "It makes the most sense."

"Yes," said Hermione. "It does."

They sat in silence for a while, each drinking their tea. Hermione had an urge to dunk one of the biscuits from the plate in front of them into her cup. But they weren't Rich Tea. They'd be rubbish.

She liked Adeline. She'd come into this world expecting to hate all of them, except possibly Regulus. At the moment, she had no idea whether she liked him. He was aloof. Distant. Prone to fits of the sullens, as her mum would have called them. He was obviously intelligent, dedicated in his own way, and had the capacity to be someone she would think of as a good person, yes. But she didn't like him, she decided. Not yet.

"I don't know what to say," Adeline admitted. "I still don't think he can do it. Kill his brother. But I don't know how to save him if he cannot."

"Neither do I."

She had an idea, of course, but this was one where she knew exactly who had the necessary information. Herself, her Sirius, Ginny, and Luna.

"Can you talk with him?"

"I don't know if he will listen to me."

"No. I suppose you do not. But I don't know if he will listen to me, either."

They lapsed into silence again.

"I'll try," said Hermione.

"Thank you." Adeline took a biscuit, nibbled it, left it on the side of her plate. "I do not know if there is anything we can do. I know enough that have joined the Dark Lord. You do not leave. You do what is asked of you. But perhaps we can help him, somehow."

"Perhaps," said Hermione. "Do you love him?"

Adeline smiled. "I think that I do."

Regulus was, as Adeline had predicted, in the library. She knocked, and there was an awful lot of shuffling and thudding before she heard his voice call her into the room.

Regulus did not look his best. He had dressed as well as usual, but slightly sloppily, as if he had thrown on the first robes he had found in his wardrobe that morning. His skin was slightly sallow, his eyes flicking between focuses far too quickly.

"Ah, hello, cousin! What is it that I can help you with, or is this merely a social visit?"

"Just to say hello, cousin," Hermione replied. "I was here taking tea with your wife, and thought I would come to visit you, as well."

She cast a glance around the room. Several books were shoved back on the shelves haphazardly, one with a piece of parchment sticking out from it. They weren't in the right section. They were fact books, clearly, and they were in the section Walburga tended to store her novels.

"How is your new job?" she asked, working her way slightly closer to those shelves under the guise of sitting down. "I do so want to know how you are finding the Ministry of Magic."

"It is what it is," said Regulus. Impressively, he did not so much as look at the books he had so hurriedly stashed. Well, either that, or she was barking up completely the wrong tree. He took a seat of his own. "I am finding it interesting. There is always so much to learn."

"Indeed."

Regulus had talked at length about his ideas for his job before joining it. Getting him to talk of it now was like pulling blood from a stone.

While she attempted the world's most awkward conversation, Hermione tried to assess the books on the shelf behind him. She thought she knew what they were. One of them was a book she had summoned from Dumbledore's office after his death in '97. Dark magic, all of it, but she'd wanted the section on Horcruxes.

"That sounds really interesting," she said. It sounded tedious as hell, and that was from her, who everyone else thought was prone to tedious note-taking. "Do you think you have a future in International Cooperation?"

"It is, of course, hard to tell," said Regulus, with a small smile. He was becoming closer to himself. "There are opportunities for me. There are opportunities elsewhere. I am very much interested in the status of what Muggles call the Eastern Bloc, and there is much good work with the wizarding authorities in those countries that I wish to be involved in."

If he survives, Hermione thought. And his idea of good work probably wasn't that close to her own.

"I know nothing of that area," she said. "What is it you are working on?"

"If you know nothing of it," he said, standing up, "then you may wish to borrow a primer. Somewhere here I have a text on the development of the situation. I have been up here rather a lot in recent days, reading on my subject."

Hermione stood alongside him, and manoeuvred herself into sight of those books. All four of them were on the topic of Horcruxes. She felt like a Muggle detective. And Sirius' family library was darker than she thought. No wonder Regulus had been led down this path.

"This one," he said, reminding her what she was supposed to be looking at, "is an adequate starting point."

"Thank you." She took the book, tucking it under her arm. She'd probably read it, too, and not just to keep her cover. "Adeline is worried about you. I do not know why, but I wanted to ensure you were okay."

"I am fine." The stiffness in the way he moved had returned. "I am busy with work, as I have explained."

"I've heard rumours," Hermione continued, "that you are involved with the Dark Lord. He attended your wedding, did he not?"

"It was politeness," said Regulus. "Politeness due to my status in society, and that of my wife. I do not wish to discuss politics with my family. Women gossip. That is where you have heard this from."

"I worry, Regulus."

"I am more than capable of minding myself, Lyra. I make only the choices that are right for myself and for my family."

"I suppose I should return to Adeline now."

"I have a report I ought to write, for work."

His eyes travelled to the Horcrux books then, for the first time. Hermione pretended to be examining her nails and not to notice.

She made her way back down the flight of stairs to the sitting room. She felt as though she'd made that worse, somehow. But it was true, she was worried about him. He looked terrible, he no longer really cared about the work he'd been so excited for, he was clearly researching Horcruxes. How long did that give them, she wondered? When had Voldemort made it? When would he hide it?

How on earth would she discover when it was to happen?

"I do not think I made it any better," she said.

"Thank you for trying. The question is now, what do we do next?"

Yes, Hermione thought, that definitely is the question.

Luna was the only one at home when she arrived. Sirius was out somewhere unknown. Unsurprising, really. He always went out when she went to see his family, and usually rocked up some hours later, smelling of dog and salt water.

"Oh, hello, Hermione. How did it go today? Have you managed to save Regulus Black, yet?"

"No idea." Hermione pulled open the fridge, rooting around for something that could be described as edible. "He's discovered that Voldemort is making Horcruxes, I think. He's researching them, anyway. He looks dreadful. He's refusing to admit that he is involved with the Death Eaters."

"I think that is good news, rather. Not for Regulus, of course, but for us. But that's my opinion."

"No, it is." Hermione found some cheese, and went to the bread bin. "It is. For us, like you said. But, Luna, I feel sorry for him, and I feel sorry for Adeline, and what if we can't save him?"

"We will do what we can."

"I feel like it's all on my head."

"Well," said Luna, taking the first piece of cheese Hermione cut. "It sort of is."

"Thanks, I think."

"We will have to be ready, you know," said Luna. "We will perhaps not get much warning of what he intends to do.

"I know."

Hermione knew that perfectly well, thank you very much. Worst case scenario was that they missed Regulus, he went there, he died, and somehow the Horcrux never even made it back to Grimmauld Place. Voldemort discovered what was going on, he came, he hunted them down, and he laid waste to them and everything they held dear. Harry would never be born, and the world would be subject to Voldemort's reign for eternity.

Hermione had thought of a lot of scenarios. She was certain that was, in fact, the worst-case. It had everything, torture, death, destruction. And, as Luna had so astutely pointed out, it did rest on her head.

"It will likely not be as bad as you think," said Luna. "I know how much time you have spent preparing for this. You're clever. You're good at this, Hermione, and you can manage it."

"Thanks." It was far more helpful than anything she'd said so far that evening.

"Sirius will still love you if you fail, you know that."

"I do." She thought she did. It had never really occurred to her before, and yet it had.

"Good. It is good to know when we are loved."

Hermione felt the urge to change the subject. "Are you going to meet the woman Ginny suggested you meet? Dorcas?"

"Two people are not necessarily set to be attracted to one another just because their preferences on genitals work together well," said Luna. "I do not know. It is, it is somewhat awkward, given all of it."

"Really?" Hermione asked. "Not that you have to tell me, not if you don't want to."

"I have told Sirius, I suppose," said Luna, more to herself than anything else. "I am surprised in some ways that he has not told you, but not in others. He does so value loyalty."

Hermione waited.

"I have been in love with Ginny for quite some years now," she said. "I do not know what I should do next."

Luna, the one that had taken almost everything so far in her stride, looked very much to Hermione like she was going to cry. Hermione reached round and pulled the other girl into a hug.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I don't think it's your fault," said Luna, with a rather watery smile. "I am well aware of how likely it is that anything will come of it. The likelihood is zero, at best, so it is more whether I should take a chance, as it were."

"Do it," Hermione decided. "I didn't expect to fall in love with Sirius. Ginny didn't expect to meet Remus. So maybe this will work out. And maybe it won't, but at least you'll have tried."

"My status here is somewhat complicated."

"I'm a creation almost entirely of your ideas and magic. I've not been caught yet, have I?"

"That is true. And at least I would have tried."


	47. Chapter 47: Faultlines

**Chapter Forty-Seven: Faultlines**

 _Ginny_

 _August 1979, Saltburn_

"So," said Ginny, as she sat on a stool in the bathroom, Sirius trimming her hair around her. "All I have to do is somehow escape McGonagall and Dumbledore, find the Horcrux, and get out before signing some dull as fuck magically binding work contract, and all without blowing my cover with the Order. Or mortally offending anyone or looking like I can't be trusted. Sounds simple."

"Sneaking around the castle is easy," said Sirius. "You'll be fine."

She sighed. "Come with me, then, if it's so easy."

"Maybe I will. Oi. Stay still, or this will be more of a mess than it usually is when I cut it."

She went without him, obviously. It was next to impossible to go sneaking some idiot in, even disguised as a dog like he'd suggested. Besides, it'd cause a thousand and one questions with Remus if she was ever found in the possession of a black dog that just happened to be identical to Sirius' Animagus form.

She hated all this fucking subterfuge.

Remus was unavailable to escort her, too, so she was alone as she approached the Hogwarts gates. It felt ridiculous, the whole thing did. Her, a teacher? She didn't want to be one, and she didn't want some fucking cursed position, at that. She wanted a bloody Horcrux and to be on her way. Seriously, she was doing Hogwarts a favour. They'd want a bit of old Voldy's soul removed given half a chance, surely.

But they'd agreed not to tell anyone, save for what they needed to say to Regulus, and so here she was, sneaking around Hogwarts.

Or, more accurately, failing to sneak around Hogwarts.

One thing Ginny had always known about Professor McGonagall, or Minerva, as she was now trying and failing to call her, was that she was sharp. She noticed things. Much to Fred and George's dismay, a lot of the time, but there you had it. And so Minerva was clearly going to notice, and see through, Ginny's useless ideas to sneak off into Hogwarts again.

It was fucking ridiculous really. There was a giant sodding snake loose in this castle, of which the teachers knew rumours, and nobody was prioritising catching it. There were stairs that literally tried to swallow you whole. A great big tree that attacked any passer-by. Teenagers doing magic of varying quality and dangerousness. Quidditch. Peeves. Trick corridors. The fucking three-headed dog, the Triwizard Tournament. Voldemort on the back of a teacher's head.

The school was lax on its ability to manage risk, but it was good enough at it to adequately supervise one soon-to-be teacher for the entirety of the time she was in the castle?

Go catch the fucking Basilisk, and leave her alone. That'd be the less risky option for the population of the castle as a whole.

Ultimately, as the least-worst option, Ginny signed the sodding contract. She was now, as of September the first, a fully-fledged, fully-cursed Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"What's the syllabus?" asked Ginny, hoping that for the love of all that Voldemort wanted to destroy that there was a syllabus.

"Ah," said Albus, which clearly meant that there wasn't.

Maybe Hermione would plan the lessons for her. Hermione liked that sort of shit.

She left Hogwarts Horcrux-less, as she'd expected. The upside here was that they couldn't supervise her constantly in the castle while she was a teacher, so she'd likely have the thing by the third or fourth of September, absolute latest. The rather more considerable downside, in Ginny's humble opinion, was that she had signed that magical fucking contract, and would be teaching at Hogwarts until the end of the year, or the curse got her, whichever happened first.

If it was relatively painless and would ultimately not mean death, Ginny was sort-of hoping for the curse.

Ginny managed a quick pop-in home to exchange a few insults with Sirius, their Sirius, and an outfit change, and then it was back out. To the funeral.

She hadn't wanted to go. She didn't feel she knew Marlene enough, really, and she hadn't wanted to intrude on anyone else's grief. She'd seen enough funerals for a lifetime, back in her other life. But when it came down to it, it wasn't about her, was it? She was going for Remus, mainly, and for Peter. For James and Lily and the other Sirius and everyone else who actually knew her.

"Wish I could come," said Sirius. "I can't believe she's dead."

"Neither can I." Ginny sat herself down on the sofa, dressed in all her funeral finery, putting off leaving. "I mean, I know she died, last time as well, but in a year, wasn't it?"

"Two years. 1981. We've killed her off two years early."

"We haven't. Death Eaters have."

Ginny knew he had a point. Without their actions, Marlene would have had another couple of years alive. Two years of war and horribleness, admittedly, but another two years. Instead, she was dead, and it had all been because Ginny had killed Lucius Malfoy and got Bellatrix and Rodolphus captured.

"It isn't our fault, no. I suppose." Sirius sat down next to her, slipping an arm around her. She tipped her head sideways onto his shoulder. "It's just shit, isn't it?"

"Poor Peter," she said.

Sirius growled a little bit. "I still hate him."

"I know. You're justified in that, I reckon. If anyone can, it's you. He killed your best friend and got you locked up in Azkaban. But this Peter isn't that Peter, I don't think, anyway. I honestly think I can make him not go bad. Is that arrogant?"

"Probably. But I think you're right," he said. "I believe in you."

"Thanks. It's a start, isn't it? And preferably without accidentally killing any more people off. Or at least not ones we like."

She went to the funeral, as much as she had hated the whole fucking idea of it. She stood there in black jeans and a black jumper, surrounded by black robes. She'd never bothered to buy robes in this time period, it hadn't seemed important. It didn't really now, either. Someone had died, someone they'd hoped to save, and it seemed like she'd failed.

The officiant gave a long, boring speech about the nature of death, the uncertainty and the beauty of life, and Ginny wanted to laugh. There was no beauty to this life that they all had. No beauty to sitting around, waiting for the next call to go and risk your fucking life fighting people that weren't that much different to you, except for the fact that they believed you were inferior. Voldemort had a lot to answer for, and so did the others that spouted his shit.

She'd always known he should die, for as long as she'd known about Voldemort. She'd heard what Ron had told their parents about him, him and the Philosopher's Stone. She hadn't been meant to, but she'd eavesdropped. And even at ten, she'd known that Voldemort needed to be stopped, and she'd sort of got that the only way he'd be stopped was by being killed. He was that kind of person. Thing. At that time, Voldemort wasn't so much of a person any more.

But this was the first time she'd actively thought about killing him herself.

And still the officiant droned on.

"You okay?" Remus asked, as they filed out past Marlene's parents. Ginny hugged Marlene's mum, a tall, willowy, pale-faced woman who was too busy sobbing into a handkerchief to notice Ginny much. She shook hands with her dad, taller still and broad, looking as though he did not quite know where he was.

"As much as I can be," Ginny replied.

"Yeah." He looked over at Peter, supported by James and Sirius. "As much as we all can be."

"Have you ever thought about after the war?" she asked. "What you're going to do?"

He stopped walking, sitting himself onto a dry-stone wall that lined the cemetery. "No. I haven't. Should I have? We all thought it'd be over by now. James thinks it'll be over this year, Sirius and Peter and I think he's wrong. I don't know what I'm going to do, because I can't see a day it'll end."

"It will," she said. "I'm certain. It's got to." She joined him on the wall. "Much as anything else, there isn't an unlimited number of us to die for it. Or of them."

"No," he said. "I suppose not."

"Positivity."

"Is overrated."

"Yeah."

"Don't laugh," he said, "but what I'd really like to do after all of this is settle down. Get married, have a family, maybe. It's probably stupid, I don't even know if I can have a family with my, you know. My condition. I don't have any money, probably never will. I'm dangerous. It isn't a very good idea, but it's what I want."

"Why isn't it a good idea?" she asked. "You're as worthy of it as anyone else, aren't you? I dunno, I can think of a lot of people who shouldn't be allowed kids, like almost any Death Eater, but you're not one of them."

"That's what the others say. That I'm as good as anyone else." He shrugged.

"And you don't believe it?"

"They're three people. Four with Lily, five with you. And McGonagall, she said it once. So that's six people, against the weight of the rest of the wizarding world who mostly think I'm a monster that ought to be put down."

"Don't say that." She'd experienced a shot of anger coursing through her body when he said it.

"Why? It isn't worth denying the truth. Whether they're right or wrong, it's what they think."

"They're wrong."

"Again, that's what the others say." He shrugged again, and began to pick at the hems of his robes. His own had been too tatty for a funeral, these were borrowed from James. She tapped his hand to get him to stop.

"Believe them. Marlene died before she could get married. You don't want to die having believed you couldn't do anything, and missing out because you thought you weren't worth it." She wondered whether she should say it, and decided to. "I knew a bloke once. Nice bloke, had a bit of a thing about not being worthy. He waited years, eventually got married and had a kid, and he was happy. Y'know, properly happy. He died six weeks after the baby was born, and he never had time to enjoy it. Him. The baby was a boy. If he'd have believed in himself, he could have been happy for a lot longer."

"Sounds like a parable."

"It does. It happened, though, I promise you."

He didn't look like he much believed her.

"What about you?" he asked. "What do you want to do, after all of this?"

For months her answer had been to return to her future, to live with Harry, finally get married, play in the World Cup. Live that life she'd planned out back over a year ago, back in the future, back when she'd thought war was over. Now, she had no fucking idea. Was it worth pinning her hopes on that? Would they screw things up here so spectacularly that Harry would die, or not be born? Would they succeed, and he end up some arrogant twat or some other type that she'd never be seen dead with?

Would she rather not risk it all?

"Dunno. I've only just found this whole world, really. Not sure what I want to do within it. Whether it's even the right place for me."

"It is if you want it to be."

"I do, and I don't." It was true enough, wasn't it. It summed up whatever it was that was twirling around in her brain like a fucking spinning top on a Elixir to Induce Euphoria.

"Maybe we'll run off to the Muggle world together. My mum made sure I knew how to deal with it, and you know what you're doing, we'd be fine. We can hide from all of this wizarding shit if we want to."

She laughed at that. "You think you could get away with that. Your friends would never let you." It was tempting, though. Really bloody tempting. She had no idea how to navigate the Muggle world, not really, but she'd learn fast enough. She wasn't much for academics, Ginny wasn't, but she was good at the practical. The doing.

"Your friends, too, now. If they won't let me go, they won't let you, either. Some days I think they like you more. Maybe we'll all go."

"James and Sirius could never survive the Muggle world."

"No, you're right. Maybe we're stuck here then, all of us. For as long as we all last."

She didn't have anything to say to that. For as long as they all lasted, indeed.

And he'd included himself in everything she was doing, as if they would be making decisions as a pair. Would they? It didn't seem terrifying, at least.

Ginny and Remus Lupin. Except she wasn't Ginny, to him, and that was where this all fell down, wasn't it?

"Come on," she said. "We'd better go over to Peter. He'll need us now."

"Yeah," he said. "You're good with him. You seem to know what to say." He looked down at her hand for a fraction of a second, and with a jolt to her stomach she somehow knew what was coming next. "But you've been there, I suppose. You lost a fiance."

She'd been wearing Harry's ring when she met him, and she'd botched an explanation. Of course he'd assume that Harry had died. She'd never said otherwise, she'd stopped wearing his ring, she'd started a relationship with someone else. She hadn't really looked back.

How much of the truth did she really want to tell him?

Well, all of it, but there you were. That wasn't an option. Hermione'd have her shoes for garters, or whatever the phrase was, and Luna would look quietly disapproving, which was somehow worse.

"I lost Harry," she said.

She wanted to stay.

It was some days after the funeral that she managed to get a decent length chat with Peter. He was crucial to the mission, of course, but she cared about him. She wanted him not to fuck up.

Merlin's beard, she actually liked Peter Pettigrew, who'd betrayed basically everyone and been an all-around shit.

"How're you doing?" she asked, sliding onto a chair at the kitchen table. James reckoned he'd been there all night. "Stupid question, isn't it? You're doing shit."

He just nodded.

"I'm not going to tell you it's going to be alright," she said. "That's a bullshit thing people say to make themselves feel better."

"Yeah," he said, nodding again.

"But I'm going to tell you to get a shower," she continued. "And then we're going for lunch."

She dragged him out, to an almost always deserted cafe of the sort Hermione called a greasy spoon. She managed to stuff half a full English into him by talking at him about Quidditch statistics until he forgot where he was and what was going on and ate as if on autopilot. Thankfully, Ginny knew her 1970s Quidditch stats, and her mother had told her that would never be a useful skill. Ha.

"I can't cry," he said. It was the first real thing he'd said. "James reckons I need to have a good cry. Sirius says I should punch something. Remus bought me a book. I can't do any of it."

"Doesn't matter," she said. She'd asked Luna what to say, and Hermione, and come up with a version of it that she thought she could say without it being cringy. "Everyone mourns differently. You've got to do what works for you."

She knew that, anyway. George throwing himself into making double the humour. Ron trying to track down every last Death Eater single handedly. Harry with his refusal to do anything at all for a good few weeks, and then jumping into action as if he had never stopped to clear Snape's name.

"I want to kill whoever did it," said Peter. "I want to make it all stop."

A pause, a mouthful of eggs. Ginny sipped her tea and waited.

"But I'm even more terrified of dying."

"All of us are."

"No, you don't understand. It's all I think about. It's all I can think about. I've tried everything, but all I dream about is all the different ways she could have died, all the different ways James or Sirius or Remus could die, all the different ways I could die. You. Lily. Dorcas. Everyone. What comes after, the oblivion. I can't stop but think about it, and I can't do anything about it."

"Shit," she said. This wasn't part of the script she'd prepared for. She was going to have to go off on one.

"Most of me just wants to run away," he said. "They didn't want to take me with them to help them find Marlene, because I'm useless in a fight. I don't have the skill for healing like you and Dorcas. I'm not good at solving puzzles and spotting patterns like Remus and James are. I'm not good at any of this. I'm not that brave."

"You're still here, aren't you?" asked Ginny. 'That's pretty brave. Where's most of wizarding Britain? Hiding."

"I s'pose."

"Take it a day at a time," she advised. "And maybe chat to Dorcas. See if there's anything you can do that isn't terrifying."

He offered her a small, watery smile. "It's all terrifying."

"Even the books? Scratch that, actually. I once saw a book that bit."

"Monster Book of Monsters," said Peter, immediately. "I looked werewolves up in it once, to prove a point. They're not in it."

"You're a good friend to them all," she said. "Think about what you're good at, not what you think you're bad at."

"Sneaking," he said, instantly. "I'm good at finding out stuff without being spotted. Good at not being noticed in general, Sirius always says so. I like Potions, I'm good at that. James says I'm better than he is. And Remus always tells me how I'm good with ideas."

Funny, she thought. None of those things were his own words. Maybe that was pushing it too far, for today.

"Well then," she said, instead. "We'll use those skills. Finish your eggs, anyway, they'll go cold. Cold eggs are disgusting."

They left when it was clear Peter wasn't going to eat any more, and wandered off into the town, It was a perfectly ordinary Muggle town, full of tiny shops selling all manner of things Muggles found important. Peter was fascinated. Ginny tried to pretend she'd seen it all before.

"It's a hoover," she said, as Peter examined a contraption in one of the shops. This one she knew. "Sucks up all the dust from your carpet."

"Mum's got an excellent charm for that," said Peter. "What's this one?"

Ginny looked at it. A small box, as deep as it was tall, with a wide door that opened and different dials next to it. Not a tv. TVs didn't open. It was between the ovens and the electric kettles, but what use would you have in a kitchen for one of these?

"No idea," said Ginny. "Mum and Dad never had one of those."

"Do all Muggles have a hoover?"

"Probably." She shrugged. Damned if she knew.

Trawling the Muggle shops almost made them forget about everything. For the hour or so from leaving the cafe to getting back to Peter's, where an agitated Remus waited, anyway.

"Phil! Peter!"

He was surrounded by papers, the family trees he and Ginny had drawn for the Muggles they'd found, lists, maps marking the locations they'd found Muggles in captivity and where they'd been taken from. An ink pot had spilled over the carpet, a quill abandoned next to it.

"What? Remus, is everything okay?"

"Yes, no, Sirius reckons they've found another one of those houses stuffed with people! Are you coming? You've been working on it too."

"Yeah, of course," said Ginny. She took a sideways glance at Peter. "Pete?"

He puffed himself out a bit, as if steeling himself. "Yes," he said. "I'm ready when you are."

"Good," said Remus. "We're leaving now." He didn't question Peter coming.

They Apparated to a spookily quiet woodland, much like the others they'd found. Shropshire, Remus said, not far from the Welsh border. Sirius was waiting for them, hunched over sitting on a log with his wand out already. With the quiet and the daylight leaking in through the trees, it would be easy enough to spot an intruder. He leapt up when he saw them, pointed a wand at them, and stared them down.

"First thing you ever said to me, Remus?"

"That you were a twat because you'd already dumped socks and quills all over my bed and we'd only been moved in five minutes."

"He did it until the end of seventh year," said Peter.

They'd had to start doing the verification, since James and Lily had nearly been caught out by someone impersonating Dedalus Diggle. Moody had gone all paranoid about it, with absolute justification, and demanded they do this every time. And not to use the same ones, either.

"What was your fake name, the night you met me?" Ginny asked, pointing her own wand at Sirius.

"Oh, Merlin, I can't remember!" he exclaimed. "Do you know how many fake names I've used in my lifetime? It was the third fake one I'd been banned from that pub under, you know. Remus used a Jelly-Legs Jinx. In a duel, which is just silly. Tiberius Ogden, that was it, I remember now."

"Correct. Bit slow, though, Moody'd have Stunned you."

"Sadly, you're very much right about that." Sirius stuck his wand back in his pocket, thought better of it, and pulled it back out. "Better go meet the others. I've stationed them just up the path, they're keeping a lookout."

"Who've you got?" asked Remus, as they set off.

"Two of the new guys," Sirius replied. "Arthur Weasley and Francis, you know Francis. Blond kid. James met him in a pub."

"The Order of the Phoenix, such a storied, selective organisation," intoned Remus. "Made up of only the best, dedicated to fighting the Dark Arts in all their forms, plus werewolves, outcasts, and people James Potter befriends at random."

"What else did you expect?" asked Peter, with an attempt at humour.

"It's fine," said Sirius. "It's how these things always are." As if he knew.

"What it is," said Remus, "is a disaster waiting to happen, but it can't be helped."

"James has impeccable taste in friends," said Sirius. "Just look at all of us. Cream of the crop of the Knarls."

Remus snorted. Peter let out a nervous giggle. Ginny chose to ignore him. She was never sure how to deal with this Sirius. He was exactly like their Sirius, in so many ways, what he could have been if not for Azkaban and the rest of it. He was disconcerting. It was weird.

"Is it still you?" asked Ginny's dad, but, fucking hell, she couldn't call him that here. Hey, she could swear in front of him though, and he couldn't say anything. Not that he ever really did, just a disapproving shake of the head and sometimes a sigh at one of Ron or Charlie's worse tirades.

"Do the question," said Sirius. "We have to. We don't have that much time, probably."

"Alright. What did Dorcas say to the both of us, right before we left?"

"Don't get yourself killed."

They walked on in silence.

Ginny realised she'd stopped feeling nervous before this sort of thing.

"Love you," she said to Remus, in case this was some kind of portent, even though she didn't believe in Divination. Luna did, and Luna sometimes had a point.

"Love you too," said Remus, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. It was a bit like he understood.

"Shhhh!" said Sirius. Peter stuck his middle finger up at Sirius.

They continued in the silence. Sirius took the lead, his wand tip lit. Peter followed with Arthur, then Francis, with Ginny and Remus bringing up the rear. They kept an eye out behind; two steps, a look over the shoulder, two steps, a look over the shoulder. The woods were as silent as they were. Ginny couldn't decide if that was a good thing, or not.

"There," said Peter, as the group came to a halt in the just-about sight of a stone barn. "That's it, isn't it?"

"Yep." Sirius turned to face the little group. "Phil, Peter, Arthur, the ground floor. Me, Francis, Remus, we're going up."

"Actually," said Remus, "I'm going with Phil."

"Fine," said Sirius, taking his own turn to make a rude gesture. Francis seemed to find this all very entertaining. "Pete, you with me and Francis, then. Get to it."

"Who put you in charge?" grumbled Peter.

"Dorcas, so shut it."

"Fine."

"Shut it!"

"You're the one talking now, aren't you?"

"Quiet," said Ginny. "I can hear something."

A nod from Arthur suggested he could, too, but once everyone had piped down there was nothing left to hear. Thankfully, Peter and Sirius gave up on the arguing, and everyone carried on making their way up to the building. They always argued more when they were getting ready for action.

"Let's just get on with it," she muttered.

They split down into two groups. Ginny, Remus and Arthur headed for the front door, the others, off to a place Sirius thought looked good to climb.

"Homenum Revelio," said Ginny, pointing her wand at the locked door. "There's about eight people in there, mostly on the ground floor."

"Okay," said Remus. "Ready?"

"This is bloody weird," said Arthur.

"It doesn't get any less weird," Remus assured him.

"Let's go in," said Ginny. "It only goes to shit if you hang around, doesn't it?"

A crashing sound from above them suggested that perhaps, they were too late to prevent that anyway.

"Bollocks," Remus muttered, unlocking the door with a non-verbal charm and barging his way in. Ginny followed close behind.

The place, after the large bang, was eerily silent just as the walk up to it had been. She kept her wand out, but managed a decent look around. It was spooky in its resemblance to the others she'd seen. Identical beige-painted walls, identical small, dirty windows, identical bare floorboards. Funny.

Though, she also remembered, the door had been heavily cursed on the last place. And the one where Sirius had been captured.

Fuck, what if this was a trap?

Remus had disappeared off ahead, the bugger. She turned to Arthur, instead.

"D-Arthur? Be careful. I dunno, I've got a funny feeling about this. Might be a trap."

Arthur nodded. Ginny turned to look for her sodding missing boyfriend.

They crept into a deserted kitchen, checked, nothing there. Arthur kept close pace behind Ginny as they slowly, carefully walked back out onto the hallway, up to a doorway. If this was like the others, it'd be a bedroom. With blue striped bedclothes from a Muggle shop called Woolworths.

Ginny had an incredibly bad feeling about this.

If could have just been nerves, of course, but she somehow felt the nerves were connected to this stupid door. Which was bollocks. Ginny didn't believe in something 'feeling bad'. She dealt in facts, in blasting the fuck out of her problems, on the whole. But she couldn't deny the dread growing in the bottom of her stomach, the lack of a Remus, the feeling of inescapable fucking doom.

"Arthur," she whispered. "I'm going in there. Stay hidden, and if I don't come out in fifteen seconds, sound the alarm." She hoped someone had bothered to teach him the Order's quiet warning signal.

The door opened at a twist of a doorknob.

Nothing.

Nothing except a group of women, huddling towards the back of the room, none of them daring to step an inch out of their group. Not one of them said anything, but a handful cowered away at the sound of her footsteps approaching them.

"Hello," she said. "I'm not going to hurt you." They didn't look as though they believed her. "I'm just going to step outside and get my friend, and we're going to help you escape."

Remus was in the corridor outside, with Arthur, and Ginny summoned them into the room.

"Eight of them," she said, "and they look terrified."

"Careful!" Sirius appeared on the stairs. "The doors all have some kind of jinx on them. It'll send out an alert somewhere if you open them. Don't open anything."

"Shit," said Ginny.

"You've opened one? Bollocks. Hang on." Sirius swung his leg over the bannister and slid down to the ground floor. A few seconds of prodding at the doorway with his wand, and he was ready to make his statement. "Yeah. Whatever it is has sent its alert."

"You can't disable it?" Remus asked.

"Could, but I dunno if it'll help now she's opened the door," said Sirius, his brows furrowed. "No offence, Phil."

"The main door was cursed, last time," she said. "It wasn't here."

"I'd say pretty conclusively this is a trap, then," said Sirius, with a cheery grin. "Best get ready to blast the shit out of some Death Eaters, hadn't we?"

Arthur went white.

Ginny decided to take charge. "Sirius, go alert the others upstairs. Arthur, keep an eye and ear out in here. Don't let yourself be seen. Remus, come help me get these people out."

They all nodded.

Ginny slipped back into the room, to find that nobody had moved significantly. She cleared her throat.

"Right. Hello." They huddled further in, if that was possible. "We're not whoever put you in here, this is a rescue mission."

"Anti-Disapparition Jinx," said Remus.

"Bollocks," said Ginny.

"We're going to gather everyone together and make a dash for it," Remus decided. "I'm Remus Lupin. We've not really got time for introductions, but I thought you should know."

"Everyone out!" said Ginny, brandishing her wand in a far more threatening manner than she was aiming for. "Follow him!"

Three of them stepped forwards, one of them shrinking back into the group almost immediately. Ginny ran up behind them and started waving her arms ineffectively, as if trying to herd cows. Remus got to the door, realised nobody was following him, and turned back around.

"I promise I'm not scary," he said. "I've just got to get you all out of here. They'll come back, you know."

The woman who'd shrunk back into the group spoke. "They said they were coming back tonight."

"Best get a move on then," said Arthur. "Don't you think? Peter's taken over watch duty," he said to Ginny. "He's sent me in here."

"Get out!" Ginny shouted, again. The feeling of the doom in her stomach had dissipated slightly with the discovery of Remus, the lack of real, tangible danger they'd found in the building, but it was growing again. "We haven't got much time."

Standing and flapping her arms a bit, she watched as Remus and Arthur carefully collected the group of Muggles, calmly taking them out, down the corridor and off out the door. Only then did she exit the room herself, into the corridor where Sirius was once again hanging off the stairs.

"They out? Good. Peter's on watch duty, Francis is finishing checking up here. Nobody up here, by the way."

"There's an Anti-Disapparition Jinx on the house," said Ginny, craning her neck back. "We'll have to go into the woods to get out."

"Knew there'd be something," said Sirius, irritatingly cocky, as if he didn't understand everything that could go wrong. He'd been almost killed by his own brother, twice, he'd been in countless fights and battles, his friend's girlfriend had been murdered. And he was the last one to get the enormity of it, or he was faking that he didn't.

"Get out," she said, and as she said it she heard the tell-tale pops of Apparition.

They needed to stop Arthur from being seen. Her, and Sirius, and Remus and Peter, they were targets already. They didn't know Arthur was with the Order, and he had a family, her family, and they'd already been targets once. They couldn't be targets again.

Peter's head popped in. "On the roof," he said. "And one by the front door."

"We distract them," said Sirius, "so the rest of them can get out."

"Fine."

"Okay." Ginny had forgotten all about Francis. "Tell me when. And what. This is my first real fight," he confided to Ginny. "I've been on reconnaissance until now. Any advice?"

"Hit them with a spell before they can hit you," she said. "Don't be a hero."

"Should be able to manage that," he said, looking down at his wand as if he was confused about what he was going to do next. "Hufflepuff. We're not really prone to heroics. You were?"

"Didn't go to Hogwarts," she said.

Francis opened his mouth to reply, but was shushed by Sirius. The feeling of impending doom was firmly settled in Ginny's stomach again.

They waited in silence, ready for something, although Ginny wasn't sure what. The Death Eaters to act first, perhaps. A better idea of where they might pop up from. Someone to die.

"Nothing's happening," whispered Peter. "Someone try going out the door."

"I'll go," said Sirius. He crept forwards, a quick look either way, and he was gone.

There was no shouts, no flashes of light from curses, no thud of Sirius being wordlessly killed. Nothing.

"Who's next?" asked Francis. "Or do we check he hasn't been met by certain death first?"

"We check," said Ginny. She took her turn to creep to the entranceway, down the long, beige corridor that was both incredibly dull and vaguely terrifying., positioning herself behind the door so she could peer through the gap between the door and the frame. It didn't offer much visibility, being little more than a thin sliver of light compared to the wide, open doorway on the other side, but it offered protection.

The doorway showed a deserted woodland through it, and not a lot else. No sign of Remus and Arthur. That was either good or terrible, and there was no way of knowing which.

"Clear," she whispered, not taking her eyes off the outside. "Can't see a thing. Let's all make a break for it."

She wanted to know if Remus and Arthur were out safe, if everyone was going to be alright, if they were suddenly going to get swooped down on from above. She wasn't going to get any of those answers by sitting here.

She grabbed for Peter's sleeve and ran.

They darted about five or six feet forwards and then Ginny pulled them to a stop, Francis behind half-crashing into them. He exhaled, and then a sharp intake of breath. He'd seen what she'd seen.

Three Death Eaters in the trees.

"Hex!" she shouted, and as ineffective as a battle cry it was, it worked.

Ginny dived as a spell shot towards her, but she was fighting back, and so were the other two beside her. Multicoloured light filled the air, and all Ginny could think was that she hoped everyone else had made it away. A Death Eater toppled forwards, and Sirius appeared behind them, grinning maniacally and waving his wand. Peter nearly got a second. Ginny was far too distracted, looking for Remus, looking for Arthur. She shouted curses at random almost, trying not to hit Sirius.

"Tell my brother he'll have to try harder to kill me!" Sirius shouted.

The Death Eater closest responded with a Killing Curse; Sirius threw himself to the floor and rolled.

"Get out!" Peter shouted. "Get out!"

"Fuck," said Ginny. "Francis!" He popped back up as she shouted, rejoining the battle. Peter was right, this wasn't about killing people. This was about getting out. "Out!" she shouted, running forwards, feeling for the edge of the Anti-Disapparition Jinx, grabbing at whoever was nearest.

She landed half a mile up the hill from Order Headquarters, half a mile from where she had meant to land, Francis on her sleeve.

"Bugger," she said. Neither of them were harmed, at least.

They walked the half a mile, neither of them wanting to Apparate further. Ginny thought she'd splinch if she tried.

"Do you really think it was a trap?" he asked. "Why didn't they storm in when they first knew we were there? What on earth are they doing?"

"Yes, don't know, don't know," she answered, navigating the short-cut across Caradoc's sheep field to the farmhouse that doubled as Headquarters. "Well, okay. I assume they wanted something other than just killing us. Or thought there might be loads of us, I don't know. We outnumbered them, but they wouldn't have known that." She thought about it, as she dodged a molehill. "I suspect they wanted to see who we were."

"Information."

"Yeah. We monitor, you see, to know who they are. We think we know the names of over half of the people in Voldemort's employ. There's some hanger-ons that we know of, but don't know how involved they are. Then there's people we suspect, and figures that appear in masks that we don't have a confirmed identity for. It helps us track what's going on, work out where they might take prisoners, who's possibly working for him at the Ministry. We know he's recruited seven or eight from the last lot to leave Hogwarts, your year, and we know what he's getting them to do. Sirius' brother is supposed to be killing him, for example. Death Eaters tend to use it to kill us, really, their information."

"Regulus."

"Yeah, Regulus. Did you know him?"

"Not really, it turns out. I always got the impression he thought himself above petty warfare."

"None of us are above it, not really." Ginny stopped for a second to orientate herself and carried on. "We don't have much choice."

"We had the choice whether to join the Order or the Death Eaters."

"We did, but is it a free choice, really?" She was thinking of Peter, who'd joined the Death Eaters out of what seemed like free will, of Regulus. "It's following the path others have led for us, sometimes, or fear, or whatever else."

"Death Eaters have tried to recruit me," he said, casually. "I made the choice not to join them. He could have done the same thing."

"Well done," said Ginny. "I mean it. It's easy to join when everyone else is, isn't it. Less so when you're being recruited by both sides."

"I suppose. Some things are just what you're meant to do."

They climbed through the barbed wire, into the back garden of Headquarters. Ginny rapped on the back door.

"Phil!" Remus almost squashed her with the force of the hug. "Where were you?"

"Fucked up the Apparition," she said, her voice muffled into his shoulder. "Ended up half a mile that way," she continued, with a wave of her arm. "Fine now."

"Good," he said. "Good."

"And you?"

"Got them all out. Nobody's hurt, except Sirius has some minor facial wound. He's fine."

"Good."

She wanted to stay, but she'd promised to go home that night. Hermione wanted to know what was going on. They needed to liaise. Make sure everything was working fine. She separated herself from the others, promising to come back first thing, collecting congratulations for their successes. They'd got out, they'd got everyone else out, nobody had died. Not like last time, was the unsaid thing. Not like Marlene.

Sirius was home when she got there.

"And?" he asked. "How's the traitor-to-be?"

"Not traitorous yet," she replied. "Found some more Muggles. You were a show-off idiot in fighting Death Eaters."

"That sounds about right, for me," he said. "Hermione'll be back in a minute. And Luna."

"Cool. I'm going to have a shower. Shout for me when they're back if I'm taking ages."

She always felt slightly dirty after a fight.

"Did Remus ever tell you what he wants most from life is a family?" she asked, sitting down on the sofa instead of going for a shower. "I can't match that up with the Remus I knew, who avoided it."

"I can," said Sirius sitting opposite. "He never said that to me, no, but it makes sense. He was so againsti it with Tonks because he wanted it, but he didn't want it to go to shit."

"Yeah," said Ginny. "It did and it didn't." She sized him up, the slightly older Sirius, the one with the Azkaban tattoo and the longer hair and the sadness that never quite left his face. "What is it you want to do with your life?"

"Dunno. It's a big question. So, aside from all the obvious, like no more time in Azkaban, I think I want a normal life. I never knew what career I would have. I'd have liked a nice relationship. No kids. Travel, maybe, I'd like to see China, you know?"

"I suppose you didn't have much of a chance to work everything out."

"No. It went a little bit, what was the phrase Ron uses? Tits-up. My life went fairly spectacularly tits-up."

"Well, never say never," said Ginny.

"What about you?"

"I wanted," she said, "to play Quidditch professionally. I wanted to get married, to Harry, have five or six kids. And to win the World Cup, obviously, and to be the Captain of the Harpies, and then a career writing sports commentary afterwards when I'm too old to play. I'll retire before I'm injured too severely, obviously, and coach all my kids to get onto their house Quidditch teams. And we'll have a family game on Sundays with as many of us as we can get along. And I'd love a pet unicorn, but Harry was always against that."

Sirius laughed. "I can't believe James' son is so bloody sensible," he said. "You should get the unicorn anyway. The six kids will love it."

"Someone's on my side," said Ginny. "What about you?"

"I'll come and feed yours when you're on holiday," said Sirius. "A pet unicorn all of my own seems like copying. I liked Buckbeak, though."

"No kids."

"No. Enough Blacks in the world. They don't need to be subjected to my family, poor innocent kids. I'll spoil yours to death."

'That assumes we all survive this," said Ginny. "That we all end up in the same time period, doing roughly the same things."

"It does." He began picking non-existent dirt out from under his nails. "Do you think Hermione will want to stay with me, when this is all over?"

"She says she loves you, yeah? Believe her."

"Okay." He didn't look convinced.

"Do you think Remus will stay with me, if I reveal who I actually am?"

"He says he loves you, yeah?"

"Oh, fuck off. Don't quote me back at myself." She stuck out her tongue. "It's different. I've been deceiving him for months."

"Deal with it when it comes," was Sirius' advice. Ginny decided to take it.

"Hello, everyone," said Luna, wandering in and depositing a bag of shopping onto the floor. "Good evening? The mood is a little sombre."

"Just talking about our life plans, and how fate tends to spectacularly fuck them up for us," said Ginny. "How's yours?"

"Oh, I never really had a plan," said Luna as she unlaced her shoes. "I take life as it comes. It's more of an adventure, that way."

"Adventure, nightmare, same thing sometimes," said Ginny.

Hermione came in. "What's a nightmare?"

"Your face," said Ginny.

Hermione sighed. "What's for dinner?"

"Takeaway," said Ginny. "I want a curry."

She didn't know how to transition any more, between these worlds where she had to know how to fight, the one where she would have to teach, the one where she was sharing food with friends. The world where she was undercover and the one where she could be herself. It jarred. It took her ages to warm into each role. She felt like an observer.

She'd just got herself back to normal when an Order member was attacked in their own home.


	48. Chapter 48: Francis

**a/n: Thank you to my beta, Rachael, and to TheLoud for gently poking me to finish writing this chapter.**

 **My alternative name for it is 'the one where Regulus gets angsty'. No specific content warnings, not really, but lots of mention of death and lots of angst. It isn't the cheeriest chapter, but this isn't the cheeriest fic.**

 **Thank you also to the guest reviewers from the last chapter (and before). I try to reply to reviewers, because it just feels nice, so thank you. Especially for the compliment on the characterisation - some of these characters I find a challenge so it's lovely to hear that I'm getting them reasonably right. And I'm a stickler for detail so getting the locations right matters to me!**

 **Chapter Forty-Eight: Francis**

 _Regulus_

 _August 1979, Hambleton Hall_

Bella was certainly enjoying being home again. She presided over the house with an even more gleeful air these days, swishing around the formal dining room ordering house-elves about. She had always been one to dress well, admittedly, but wearing her finest robes to a simple gathering of Death Eaters, an unscheduled one, suggested something more than just a wish to be well presented at all times.

Perhaps it was that her husband was in Azkaban. Regulus had heard the rumours of her and the Dark Lord. He knew as well as anyone that Bellatrix had opposed the marriage with Rodolphus Lestrange. She had been meant for Sirius, after all, to be the lady of the Black family. And then Andromeda had taken off with the Mudblood, and she had been forced into the marriage with Lestrange in Andromeda's place.

Regulus had not been old enough to understand what it was that was happening, not in full. He had understood enough to know that something was compelling her to do as her father had told. Narcissa had given him the rest of the information some years later. At that time it had seemed entirely necessary. The family's honour had been at stake, and Uncle Cygnus and Grandfather Pollux had acted to restore that. It was the reason that these rituals had been invented, after all.

Now it did not seem quite so necessary, although he was still not sure how he would have solved the problem without using the _Genus Cognatio_ and ensuring her obedience. The Lestranges had been angry, and rightfully so. But so had Bellatrix.

Had forcing her obedience been the optimal route? Regulus did not know.

He tore his mind from these matters of the past, and returned himself firmly to the present.

"Of course," said Yaxley, "it is not so much a matter of when, but where. We have been ordered not to do it in front of anyone who can identify us."

"That should be obvious." Nott relaxed into a chaise with his goblet in his hand. There was a blood-stain up his sleeve, but he did not appear to care. "But then, we have benefited from their inability to do that. It is not as if we are indiscriminately attacking. We are simply acting on the information they have been so foolish as to give us."

"Indeed," said MacNair. He was a tall, brutish man, and one Regulus had never warmed to. He enjoyed killing. He liked to torture. He did not do it for the promise of a better society, but for the fun of the act. Regulus had always found that faintly sickening.

One of the useless friends of Malfoy's, Crabbe or Goyle, spoke next.

"Just doing the work of the Dark Lord," he said. "Scare them, it will. Get them to stop. Get them to see the reason."

"It's possible they are all beyond that," said Yaxley. "Don't you think, Black?"

Regulus nodded. He'd always said the Order of the Phoenix deserved to be taught a lesson. Ought to stop opposing what was so clearly the right path.

Sirius was in the Order. Regulus did not want to kill Sirius. He could not so much as think that here, or he would be punished for the insubordination. He had been warned that he would have to fulfil the task.

He was forced to wonder if there was such thing as a correct path, to the exclusion of all others.

"Tonight's was hard work," said MacNair. "Didn't want to repent at all."

"My point," said Yaxley. "Hopefully some of the rest of the list will be easier to persuade."

"Or not," said MacNair. "I don't care. Potter won't be any easier. I remember him from school. I look forward to killing Potter, in fact. Bastard's up his own arse."

"What was his name again?" Crabbe asked. "The one tonight. It wasn't Potter. I forget."

"Macmillan," Nott replied. "The runty one. Francis, or some such ponce's name. Not even a proper wizarding name, in my opinion. Wizards should have names they can be proud of."

"Ah, yes, what is your son's name again?" asked Selwyn. "Congratulations, once again."

"Theodore. A strong, wizarding name, with history."

"Indeed," said MacNair, who wasn't the brightest. "Screamed like a proper nancy boy, he did, that Macmillan. Deserved everything we gave him. He's been fucking some lad from another good family, that's the rumour, and he's been seen with the Order. Fought with them. Deserves it." MacNair had blood on his robes, too.

"Did you finish the job?" asked someone. Regulus was no longer entirely listening. His head was full of smoke. The goblet in his hand felt cold.

"Nah. Going back, after this. He'll stew a while. Might be able to convert him yet. Might just kill him."

"Make sure you do, one way or another," said Yaxley.

Regulus felt as though he ought to run from the room, but that would not help him survive this. It would help none of them survive this.

But he had to get to Francis.

It was true that Francis had ended whatever it was that they had between them, and Regulus had rationalised that he was correct to have done so. Regulus was to marry, after all. Had married. It may have been perfectly acceptable for a man to have a companion, but Francis did not have to accept that role if he did not wish to, Regulus supposed. However much Regulus wished he could have stayed, it was not his choice in the entirety.

That choice had belonged to Francis.

Regulus had been allowed his own choices.

He had chosen to care about the man, even though they had not spoken since the morning that they had left Hogwarts for the final time. Even if he had refused an invite to Regulus' wedding.

Even if, as it now seemed, the man was a blood traitor.

He had chosen to join the Dark Lord.

He had chosen not to kill his brother.

The Dark Lord entered, with fanfare and then with silence from the assembled men and handful of women. Regulus emptied his mind as Grandfather Pollux had taught him. These were not thoughts it would do to be seen with, not at all. And Regulus had been taught how to behave in all circumstances. Almost all, except for what to do when the man you had carried on a relationship with had been left for dead by your own allies.

Where, he wondered, was the etiquette in that?

He emptied his mind once more.

"My faithful," began the Dark Lord. He was powerful, truly so. "My followers. My most loyal. I thank you for attending me tonight."

There was a murmur from the room, and the shuffling of feet as the assembled arranged themselves into a formation. Regulus took his position, between Severus Snape and Aldous Selwyn. He bowed his head low as the Dark Lord swept past and did not pause beside him. He was grateful. He did not wish to attract attention tonight.

"Yaxley," said the Dark Lord, pausing in front of the bulky, dark haired man, several down from Regulus. "How goes our programme?"

"We have begun," said Yaxley. "We have tracked down eighteen members of the Order of the Phoenix to their homes, and we attacked the first tonight. He will be dead by sunrise, or converted to our cause."

"See to it," said the Dark Lord. The imperious tone went, replaced by a softer one. "I do apologise if I summoned you from your work, but we must discuss our progress from time to time, must we not? I am certain all of these would make adequate recruits, if they can be so persuaded."

He walked on, seeming to float rather than to move his legs underneath the layers of robes. As if he was not quite human. His face, too, was not so much that of a man but of something more than that. Regulus was, of course, aware of the Horcrux, but that would not dehumanise a man so much. Could it? A single Horcrux could not do so much, no. Regulus had read almost all the material on the matter.

"Antonin." Instead of standing tall as Yaxley had, Antonin Dolohov appeared to cower under the Dark Lord's stare. "You have had less success in recent months. The Order has continually disrupted our experiments. Have you yet found a way to continue them in a way that the Order cannot detect?"

"I think so, my Lord."

"I am not satisfied with merely you thinking that you have dealt with this. I require that you are certain."

"My Lord, I will make it certain, my Lord."

"Good. I expect results. The experiments will continue until we have reached a conclusion. I must know."

"You will know, my Lord, soon."

He moved on, going from man to man in the circle, stopping for a few questions or words of praise. Each and every one of them was so earnest, so eager to please their Lord. His Lord. Regulus' stomach twisted in on itself, the palms of his hands beginning to feel damp. If he was to be questioned, he was not sure what he would say. What he would reveal without speech.

His breathing quickened. He must stay calm, he knew that. He knew that well. He was a Black, and he must act like one.

If that was what he wished to be.

"Regulus."

Regulus raised his head, enough to show that he was ready but not enough to meet the Dark Lord's eyes.

"How are you progressing with your aim?"

"Well, my Lord. I have established his usual pattern. I will be acting in just a short time."

He kept his mind blank. One did not lie in the presence of the Dark Lord.

"See that you do."

He left, going to Severus, now, and Regulus did not dare to think anything at all. The hammering of his heart on his chest did not lessen. His voice, if he was to speak, would have shaken. His hands, too. One did not lie in the presence of the Dark Lord, and yet he had done so.

As soon as he could leave without it looking to be suspicious he did so, murmuring excuses about Adeline having need of him.

"Got her pregnant yet?" asked Severus, and Regulus stuttered something. Thankfully the assembled seemed to assume him prudish, rather than having traitorous thoughts, and he was allowed to leave with no more than a few back-slaps and ribald jokes.

"Get her belly filled tonight!" shouted Yaxley, as Regulus took his leave.

He walked down the length of the hallway, boots on the polished wood, the very hallway he had walked up in order to take the Mark. A year ago almost exactly. He had considered himself honoured, the ultimate honour. Lucius Malfoy had recommended him personally, the youngest ever to take the Mark, and he had been proud. He had been doing good in the world.

Now, he was not so sure that he was.

He had been asked to kill his brother. He was being asked to condone experimentation that he was not sure that he agreed with the principles of. He was being asked to watch as his former, well, whatever it was to him, his Francis, was murdered for a cause. The cause to protect pure-blood society.

And the Dark Lord was sanctioning the killing of purebloods. Blood traitors. He had to remember that they were blood traitors. They did not have the worth that he did, that their faithful did. How many times had he said that Sirius deserved everything he had coming? How many times had he looked at him, and not been able to understand how they could have come from the same family? How many times had he wondered how it was ever possible that he had loved his brother?

But it was pure blood that was being spilt, and blood belonging to Francis Macmillan, and Regulus was not sure that he knew what to think.

He supposed that this was traitorous thoughts, indeed. A thin line that he must walk, between a loyal follower and a traitor. Blood traitor. The risk of becoming everything he had so despised.

His hands shook as he prepared to Apparate. He must steady himself, he knew, because to do otherwise would be dangerous. The Macmillan's house was on the outskirts of Keswick. He had accompanied Lyra there several times. He must go now, before MacNair and Nott and others decided to return.

It was smaller than he had remembered. Less imposing than the last house he had paid a call to, with its trail of yellow roses hanging down and over the front door. He ran, near tripping, up the flagstone path. The Dark Mark did not yet hover over the building. That, in itself, held some positive omens.

"Francis?" he asked, at the open door. "Francis?"

He tried shouting louder, but there was still no response. The entirety of the Macmillan family were unavailable in some way, judging by his unimpeded progress into the old, rambling cottage. The lights were on, a fire flickering in the grate of a room that he passed. But, aside from the occasional crackle of a log combusting, there was nothing but silence.

The hallway was long and narrow, painted a navy blue. Regulus picked his way along it, avoiding the blood dotted along the parquet floors.

"Francis?"

"Reg…lus." His voice. Francis.

Regulus sped up.

Francis was in a small room, mahogany furniture and the smell of smoke. Francis, not sat in a chair, but on the floor in a pool of his own blood. His face was ashen, his mouth croaking Regulus' name with what appeared to be the ends of his energies.

"Francis!"

It was exactly as he had feared it would be. The blood, the way that he only twitched, not moved as if he was a real, living wizard. He had known that this was to be what he would find here, but he still could not quite process it. As if it was happening to somebody else, not to him. Not to Francis.

Regulus knelt down beside him, feeling an instant damp permeating his robes. He ignored that. What to do? Where ought he start?

The throat. He remembered that. Close the wound at the throat and the blood loss could be better controlled. Severus Snape had shown him a spell. It was effective. He should use that.

Francis' breathing began to steady as the wound on his neck closed. He tried for words, gasping, steadying himself.

"Your lot."

"The Dark Lord?" He had not been here, Regulus was certain of it, but he asked.

"Not him personally. Not important enough for him. Followers."

MacNair. Nott. The other one. Regulus would see that they paid.

The slashes on his chest, now they would not heal with any of the spells that Regulus knew.

"I was asked to join," Francis croaked. He did not need to say what, for Regulus to understand. "I refused."

"And they did this?" Regulus stared at the blood. There was so much of it, and it was not that Regulus had not seen a man bleed out onto a floor before. He had caused this sort of injury himself.

Francis was rallying. His breathing was slow and steady, his hands had relaxed their vice-like grip on the wand now at his side. No colour had returned to his face, but neither had it paled further.

"Oh, I reckon they'd have liked to do more. Those marks you have, they burned. They went. Said they would come back for me." A small, set smile. "They won't get me."

Regulus felt an urge to suggest that Francis should join the Dark Lord, should give in to their demands, because that would be the way to prevent injuries such as these. His life was worth more than this. He had the urge to shout at him, to tell him that joining the Order of the Phoenix was only ever going to have led to this. To disaster, to injury, to death. It was a fool's errand.

Almost as much as Regulus' own.

"Will you hide?" he asked, instead. "Please, hide."

"Yeah," said Francis, and he seemed to be losing consciousness, the recovery as brief as it had been hopeful. "Regulus. They tried to kill me. Your friends."

Regulus paused. Francis' eyes closed.

"They are no friends of mine," he said. He could have sworn he saw a faint smile crossing Francis' face, and that emboldened him. It should not. Francis had been attacked on the orders of the man Regulus had sworn to serve. He ought not be here. He should have been celebrating the taking out of one more blood traitor. A useless blood traitor.

Sirius. Francis. Who else would defy the Dark Lord?

Potter was set to be killed, MacNair had said as much. He was a pureblood too. A blood traitor. But why was his pure blood worth any less than Regulus' own?

The Weasleys were blood traitors. He had not approved of the attack on their children. Too young to have decided to become traitors.

Traitors, like he was for this act.

It was not the time for that. St Mungo's. Francis needed to go to St Mungo's, as soon as he could, and if Regulus was discovered to have been the one to take him there he would suffer a fate not too far removed from that of Francis. But he needed a Healer.

There was something that was preventing him from making decisions. A wave of panic that Regulus had felt only once before. The day that Francis had ended what they had shared. He had felt this then.

He had to do something, else they would return. MacNair was thorough. Nott was loyal. Crabbe or Goyle would do as they were told.

"Francis?" he said. "I will return. I am going to fetch help."

From somewhere.

Francis did not reply.

Regulus did not have time for the formalities of leaving from a visit, and Apparated from the spot he stood on to the dining room of his house at Grimmauld Place. From there he ran. He ran, up the stairs and along and burst through the door of the dining room where he gasped for breath.

There did not seem to be enough air in the world for him to breathe.

"Regulus!" came Adeline's cry. "Whatever is the matter? Why are you so drenched in blood?"

"Regulus?" said Lyra, softly, when he did not reply.

"My friend," he said. "My friend has been attacked by Death Eaters."

Adeline dropped a teapot from which she had been pouring with a crash. Lyra's hands flew to her face. Regulus realised that his own Dark Mark was clearly visible, standing out like the badge of a traitor against his pale skin.

"He requires St Mungo's. Now." It did not sound like his own voice that was speaking, did not feel like his own body that was standing in place in the room.

"Who? Where? I can call for a Healer." said Adeline, standing up, as if prepared to take charge.

"Francis. Francis." Regulus did not, somehow, much mind that he appeared to be repeating himself, something that he certainly had not been brought up to do.

Lyra stood up. He face was set, her posture tall, as if she had been preparing for something like this. It was funny, Regulus thought. She could never have known.

He was not entirely thinking as he ought to. The room was turning on some unseen axis, he was certain of it. He felt as if he would vomit. Not on the carpet in here. His mother would likely curse him.

"Should I take him? He is, after all, a cousin of mine. It would not look suspicious."

"Yes, yes, do so!" Regulus thought of throwing his arms around her as he had seen grateful friends do at Hogwarts, although never his own. But he was covered in blood, and he was a Black, and he was simply grateful that she had worked out what it was he was asking of her. "Please," he added. "Please."

"Adeline," said Lyra. "I am so sorry to have interrupted our tea. I may not be able to get back here today, but I will endeavour to report to you." And she was gone, a sweep of her robes and the click of the door closing behind her as the marks of her departure.

"Regulus," said Adeline, again. "You will need a bath."

She herded him to the bathroom, and she drew the bath around him as he stood, unmoving, in the centre of the bathroom. When he did not remove his own robes, she removed them for him, and for the first time he realised the way he had been clutching them to himself like a small child's comfort rag.

"No," he said. "No." He tugged the sleeve of his robe down over his Dark Mark. "No."

"Regulus, come along, they have to come off. You cannot remain covered in another man's blood."

"I can, I can. I cannot, I cannot," he said, as he could not show her that Mark.

"I have seen it before, as you are well aware."

"No, no, you cannot see it."

"Regulus," she said, firmly, and with a flick of her wand the robe was Vanished. "I know who you are, and I have never yet judged you for it."

"It is my fault. Francis might die. Because of me."

"You know that is not the truth, Regulus." Her small, smooth hands directed him towards the bathtub, encouraging him in with the lightest of pressure. "If he has been attacked by Death Eaters, it is down to his own actions. Or inactions. Or simple bad luck." She spoke in a voice that would soothe a baby.

"I loved him, Adeline."

"I know."

She left, leaving him naked, somehow, and in the centre of the room with the bath drawn. Seeing no other logical option, he settled himself into the bath, hoping that the water would wash away some of the confusion that had settled firmly into his head.

Mania, he would have gone so far as to call it. He had been having a perfectly ordinary dinner with some of his colleagues. They had been discussing the Cold War problem that the Muggles had dug themselves into. His Mark had burned, and he had excused himself. It was entirely normal, completely within the bounds of what he had expected from his life. He had declined a further drink, and he had gone to attend the Dark Lord.

Regulus' life had not been approaching anything that he recognised, lately.

It had hinged on that night in the old priory, the night that the Dark Lord had killed the half-blood Order member, the night that Adeline had announced her pregnancy, the night of the Horcrux and the realisation that he could not, would not, kill his brother. He had not made further progress on this. He did not understand how this would happen, this resolution of his, and not end in the certain death of both himself and his brother.

And now he was certain that he had gone quite frankly mad.

It was MacNair's fault. MacNair and Nott, and Crabbe, possibly, or Goyle. Regulus had never possessed the skill of telling the two apart; they both had the same lack of intelligence and the same strong bodies ruined by indulgence in food and alcohol. They had been bragging of what they had done before coming to the Dark Lord's presence. A simple scare job, it sounded, a possible killing of an unworthy.

Regulus had nodded along.

It was perhaps hypocritical that he had done that until he had heard the name.

And what he was supposed to do with all of this information, with the feelings he was experiencing, he did not know.

One did not lie to the Dark Lord. And he had done so that very night, that he was almost prepared to act to kill his brother, and then he had taken himself to the aid of a man who was under Death Eater attack.

It was treason enough to have told the lie, but the second would perhaps even mean his death.

Regulus Black had no desire to die.

He wanted to see his child born into the world. A son, if he was fortunate. And the further children. He would like a girl, too, very much.

One did not simply leave the Dark Lord's employ. It was a fact that had been made abundantly clear. Had he not personally killed a man that the Dark Lord had been displeased with? Regulus knew the penalty. He knew the price that was to be paid, and he knew what would happen next.

That was if he wanted to leave. He did not know if he did. He wished to improve society. To strengthen his family. To live.

He pulled himself from the bath, dressing carefully in robes summoned from upstairs. They folded pleasingly over his left arm, hiding the Mark that marred the skin beneath them.

He felt as if he could face the world again, for a short time. He did not have much clarity, not yet, on what his next actions would be, but whatever it was that had possessed him thankfully seemed to have gone. He looked as his mother had when Sirius had angered her. It was a look that he did not feel appropriate for his station. It was not seemly. And in front of not only Adeline, but Lyra too.

Regulus shook his head. He could not afford to lose control. Not if he was going to manage whatever it was that he eventually set out to do.

He did not want to kill his brother. He would not. If he repeated it, he felt as if he may one day develop the courage to follow his conviction.

He did not want to condone the death of Francis, if that was what his fate was to be. But what could he do?

He did not much care about James Potter, but he did not want to spill further pure blood.

It was supposed to be about rebuilding this society. Not killing. Not killing those who should be a part of it. He had killed someone for that. He had been complicit.

Was this about wizarding society, or was this about immortality? He had a Horcrux.

It was, he supposed, entirely possible that the entirety of this was about one man's desire for power and followers, rather than about the good of society.

Regulus leant against the wall. He breathed, or he tried to, slow and deep and waiting for the tension that was growing within to abate once again. He had wanted this to be perfect. It was not supposed to go like this.

Nobody had warned him of any of this.

He had been making his own choices, and of that he had always been certain. But was it that his choices could not be trusted?

He steadied himself. He must talk to his wife. He had a recollection of having admitted that he had loved Francis to her, and that was something that he could fix. If not the rest of it, he could fix that.

She appeared, and he was spared the need to find her.

"Regulus, there you are! I was beginning to worry! Come, I have asked the house elves for a light supper."

He allowed Adeline to steer him into the drawing room, where Kreacher was setting a supper of eggs, cheese and bread onto a low table. He scraped and bowed, and Regulus barely took any notice of the elf. Adeline knew far too much of what had transpired that evening, and so did Lyra, and this was not to be borne by the witches of the family.

This was a mess he had managed to get himself into, and it was a mess that he would extract them from.

"Adeline, my dear," he said, feeling for his wand. "Could you check for me something in the newspaper?"

"Of course," she said, and turned her back to him to retrieve the Daily Prophet from where it rested on an end-table across the room.

" _Obliviate._ "

It was seen as acceptable in some circumstances to use Memory Charms on one's own wife. Regulus did not know if this fell within it. And in no circumstance was it strictly legal. But he knew that if he was to fail to kill his brother, if his actions were to be caught, then Adeline would be in danger. She was safer without the knowledge.

"The Prophet," she said, turning back to him ad passing it over. She had a look on her face as if she did not understand why, exactly, it was that she was handing him the paper. "You have a mark under your eye."

"They have some terribly badly-trained owls in the office." Strangely enough, that was the truth of it.

"Perhaps you should speak to the manager. It won't do you any good if you are hurt at work by a bird." She carefully arranged cheese onto a slice of bread for herself, and Regulus watched her hands at work. Slower and less deft than they usually would have been. A side effect.

"I shall tomorrow."

"Have you had any thoughts on names for the babe?" she asked. A hand crept across her stomach as she spoke, even though there was nothing to be discerned from her shape. "I know it is early days. I do like Andromeda for a girl, but the connotations for your family are perhaps not ideal."

"Andromeda was a blood traitor."

"Yes. Your family have disowned her. But our Andromeda could walk a different path."

"Do you believe that blood traitors are irredeemable?"

"I do not believe that anyone is above some kind of redemption, I suppose. I do not like everything that my brother is doing, but he's still my brother." Her brother was a Death Eater. "I like Alphard, for a boy, but I suppose that is not ideal in the way that Andromeda is not."

"Alphard gave his fortune to Sirius."

"He did. Perhaps we should honour your father."

"No." Regulus was certain that it should not be that. "We have not had a Cepheus in some years." And the one that had come before had done nothing of note, neither a blood traitor not a supporter of the dangers of the present.

"Vega," said Adeline. "Or Delphini."

Neutral names.

She sipped at her tea, her face still bearing the look of someone who did not entirely think that everything made sense. He had erased just the memories that related to their conversation, his arrival to the house and their interaction in the bathroom. It was not as if she had lost hours. He would do the same for Lyra, when she returned, That would be more complex. Replace it with having paid a social call to Francis and discovered him, perhaps. Or to his sister. Yes, that would be more appropriate. A social call on Georgina Macmillan that had lead to her discovery of Francis.

"There is an awful lot of politics in naming a child," she said. Her bread and cheese was untouched, as was his own. "An awful lot of politics in the world."

"It is not for you to worry of," he said.

"It is for everyone to worry, when our husbands, brothers, sons or fathers may be killed for a cause."

"Is it?" He was discussing baby names, and this, and Francis was close to death. He may have died already, and Regulus would not know. He began to feel the urge to stand up and pace the room, which was not something he did. "It is our job to protect you."

"You cannot protect us if you are dead."

Regulus could not deny the truth in that statement.

"You do not need to worry." He was certain she did not. She would be protected. His mother would make sure of it, as she had protected his cousin Narcissa. As she had brought Lyra into the family.

He would ignore what she had done to Sirius.

"That's what my brother said to his wife. That's what my father said. I assume it was what Lucius Malfoy said to Narcissa, and look at the state she has been left in. I do not want to be as Narcissa is, left alone with his family, carrying his heir, and without him."

"My family would look after you." For they would. They were looking after Narcissa, and it was not as if his mother did not like Adeline. She thought that she was a fine match.

"I don't want that, can you not see?"

He did not have anything to say, not to that. It was as if his brain would not move as fast as he wanted it to. Somewhere, somewhere deep in the recesses of it, he had an answer that would be tolerable to Adeline. Some explanation, some reassurance, some charm, even, that would smooth it over and make everything alright. He could not find it.

"I don't want you to exclude me from whatever this is that is going on. I know you're in with the Dark Lord. I don't think you should be."

"To leave the employ of the Dark Lord is to invite your own death."

"And this is exactly why I do need to worry! You have put yourself into a situation you do not understand, Regulus Black, and you have endangered me and you have endangered our child."

He wondered if the Oblivation had worked. She was perfectly calm, now, as if they were still discussing baby names. She seemed to know something.

"Women gossip, you know. I know a fair amount. It is very easy to find out things, if you know who to listen to. I'm an intelligent woman. I can work these things out, and I know enough to know how much danger we are all in. You have been asked to kill your brother, and you are obliged to do that, else he will kill you. Tell me I am wrong, I beg you. Or I must assume that I am right."

She did not know the worst of it, the charm had worked. Else she would be berating him for that in this strange, icy tone, rather than his attempted murders.

"I cannot." Honesty was a poor policy, but he did not know what lie to give.

"I thought as much."

If anything, she looked disappointed. As if she had hoped for more from him. The silence stretched between them, too thick to be cut by the butter knife in front of him. A carving knife from the kitchen may have done it.

"Do you know why I married you?" she asked, finally. "I had offers from several others. I married you because you did not seem like a man capable of cruel acts. Rodolphus (rodolphus is married to bella. Maybe rabastan?) Lestrange offered for me. He would kill his brother to increase his standing with the Dark Lord. That was not the sort of man I wanted to marry."

"I do not wish to kill him." It would do her no good to remember this conversation, either.

"Please don't. I can't make you do anything, I know I cannot. Think on it." She abandoned her drink and her meal, giving them a last look as if she was disgusted with their very existence. "I think I will go to bed, now," she said, standing. A hand went to her stomach, protectively.

"Goodnight," he said.

"Goodnight, Regulus."

She left the room, and Kreacher began to busy around him, clearing up the supper that neither of them had eaten. Regulus was not sure how long he had remained in the chair, because when he next heard a sound within the house Kreacher had left, and Regulus managed to carry a normal conversation about potions theory with Grandfather Arcturus as if nothing abnormal had occurred in his life that day.

"Ah, Regulus, may I have a word?" asked Lyra, appearing at the door when Arcturus was only halfway through what was certain to be a lengthy monologue.

"Certainly," said Regulus, standing. "Please excuse us, Grandfather."

"You young things must have many important matters to discuss. You will sleep in your room here tonight, Lyra. It is unseemly for a well-bred girl to be moving around so late, even if it now appears to be acceptable for her to live independently. It certainly would not have happened in my day, and change is not always for the better."

"I will, Grandfather," she said.

"Good." He left. Lyra glanced nervously at the door, waiting as Regulus was for the sound of his footsteps to recede.

"I took him," she said. "The Healers say he has a good chance to survive."

Regulus felt something lift from his stomach, but certainly not all of the dread he had carried there. There was risk to Francis surviving, as much as Regulus so wanted them to be his fate.

"Thank you."

He ought to Obliviate her, as he had done to Adeline. For their own safety, for their own good, in the event that he was to fall.

"How did you find him?"

"I cannot answer that."

"I suppose you cannot answer how he came to be in that position? I could tell the Healers nothing. I told them I was attempting to return a borrowed bracelet to Georgina." She fiddled with the bracelet she wore, but that was not a Macmillan heirloom. It was one of their own, the Black family motto engraved into the underside. His mother had presented it to her some months ago.

She was intelligent, though, having somehow come up with almost the same lie that he had prepared for her.

"I cannot tell you that, either."

"I suspected as much. Everyone is entitled to their secrets."

She did not look much as though she believed it.

"How many do you have?" he asked her.

"Enough."

"As do I."

It was dangerous, this, talking as if he could trust her with what was going on. With any of this. He ought to simply use a Memory Charm and go to his bed. He would need sleep for what was to come. A rebellion that he was planning, even in its small way. How to save his brother from the Dark Lord.

"Voldemort?"

"Why do you say his name?" She had never before.

She looked up, quickly, and down at her feet, and back at him.

"I have not lived here most my life. I don't know the fear of him as you do."

"I am not afraid of the Dark Lord." He said it with the conviction that he could manage. Lucius had advised him to fear what the man was capable of, and to emulate it. Lucius had died.

"You would do well to be, I imagine. I don't know this Dark Lord as you do. I don't know the truth of exactly what he's doing, nobody does. Perhaps that's the point. I don't know why Francis means so much to you, either, but he does, doesn't he?"

"He is a friend."

"A friend you would endanger your life for. They're rare." She sat down, looking as if there was somewhere she would much rather be. Perhaps even someone she would rather be with.

"We do not choose who we become close to."

"No," she said. "Your mother wishes for me to marry. She has presented me with a shortlist, just this afternoon. Is that how your marriage was dealt with?"

"I asked for my mother to assist me in finding a wife. I chose Adeline for myself, but my mother ensured that I did not waste my time with unsuitable witches. She can help you."

"I don't want her help."

He wondered whether this was something he ought to say. He wondered how much he understood about what would benefit the family, as he had apparently found himself promising his life to a man who wished for only power but talked of other things,

"Has anyone ever explained the Genus Cognatio to you? Look for it in the library here, if they have not. My family, our family, can force us into certain forms of action. They will do so, if you do not comply in a way that pleases them or somehow evade their actions. Bellatrix fell foul of it. Andromeda escaped, and she was disowned. It is up to you which fate you choose, after all."

"Fate seems rather melodramatic."

"All of us have a day that we will die."

He stood, walking to the window. It was not as if it would offer any comfort. He did not feel the mounting panic any longer; it had been replaced with a dull ache of dread. He still did not feel as if his body was his own.

"Again, melodramatic," she said. "And morbid." She sighed. "But the truth, I suppose. Some sooner than others."

"Yes."

If he was to attempt to do anything, even prevent the death of Sirius, he would die. Would it not be better to go out having done something more significant? If the Blacks must end somehow, ought it not to be with a moment of glory, however small?

He had always wished to save wizarding society, not condemn it to rip itself to shreds in service of a tyrant.

He had to save Sirius. If Francis could be attacked, if he could be killed or near killed, Sirius could be next.

It was not logical. He did not know if he liked his brother, even.

Would Sirius repay the favour, if the odds had been balanced in the opposing direction?

"I did ask," said Lyra, "if everything was okay. I'm going to assume that it isn't."

"I am fine," he said. "I am worried for a friend."

"I'll visit him tomorrow," she said. "I'll tell you what I find out."

She may have said something else, there, but Regulus did not hear it. He was left alone in an empty room, with the nagging feeling that he ought to have Obliviated her. It was not seemly to invade her privacy by doing so now. It would have to be the morning.

He did not sleep much that night.

Regulus awoke from what little sleep he had managed to have with the dull ache of the impending disaster remaining in his stomach. He dressed slowly, as if he had no control over his own limbs. Adeline was nowhere to be found, and Lyra, neither. Just his mother, who had complaints she wished to make.

"Lyra is being awfully stubborn about finding herself a wizard," she complained. "The pickings are becoming slimmer with every month she leaves it, and she is how old? Twenty-four, now, if she is a day. I'd had my son by twenty-four, you were seven months old on my birthday. What she's thinking, I do not know. You will talk some sense into her, won't you?"

"Yes, mother," he said. "I will speak with her."

"My son," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "My only son. You have always been the success of our family, well, you and Narcissa until the terrible thing that happened to her. You will return us our honour. You will bring the Black family name back to where it ought to be."

It was a terrible burden, and besides, she had two sons. It was just that one had made the wrong choices.

Regulus had always been so certain he was on the right side of history.

He spent the morning pacing the library, pausing intermittently to check his books on Horcruxes and to stare out of the window. As if he was expecting some kind of answer to fall from one or from the other.

It was the prospect of having lunch with his parents and his grandfathers and being forced to pretend that there was nothing unusual occurring that encouraged him to leave. He gathered his cloak and left the house, turning on the spot as soon as his feet hit the steps, landing outside St Mungo's.

"I am here to see Mr Francis Macmillan," he said to the welcome witch, in his most forceful voice. The witch looked up.

"Certainly, Mr Black. He's on floor three. I loved your wedding, I read all the coverage in Witch Weekly and the Prophet!"

"Thank you," he said. "My wife planned it, she is a talent with such things."

He left for the stairs. He did not know what he was to find, but Francis was alive. He would not be sent to a ward if he had not been. He would have been sent to a side room, and a Healer would have come to impart the news, as had happened when his grandmother had died.

He spoke to the Healer on duty and was directed to the correct bed. Lyra sat by it, talking in a low voice, her face full of concern. And Francis was propped onto some pillows, talking back, of a sort. Weak, clearly, but talking.

"Regulus," he said. In a tone of surprise.

"You came here," said Lyra, as if she knew what that might cost him.

"I wished to see that you were well," he said. "Lyra was awfully concerned as to your welfare."

"I was," she said.

"Of course," said Francis. "I don't know if you are the best person to visit, though." His eyes travelled to where the Mark sat under Regulus' robes.

"It is a private room."

"That isn't my only point, is it?"

Regulus took a seat.

"I will go," said Lyra, standing as he did so. "I'll request someone send those things you asked for, Francis."

He thanked her, and said nothing as she left and the two men were left alone.

"Why did you come?" he asked, finally.

"I wanted to see how you were," said Regulus.

"No," said Francis. "Last night."

"I wanted to save you."

"Do you know what they could cost you?"

"I am not unintelligent. Or unobservant. I know the potential cost of my actions."

"Finally, you do, anyway. Fucking hell, Regulus." Regulus had never approved of the foul language. He had found it attractive, yes, but he had not approved. "You don't do things by halves. First you're joining them, then you're off on your own saving people from them. Have you left the cause, then?"

"No. I remain a loyal follower." He had to say that.

"Loyal by no definition I know, and I'd know, being the Hufflepuff."

"I am sorry," said Regulus, but it did not seem anywhere near enough.

"I don't know if it's your fault or it isn't."

"It is. I am certain of it. If I had not joined…"

"If you hadn't joined, you'd have stayed with your family, trying not to make a fuss, looking after your own. Because wasn't that why you joined?"

"It was. I wished to secure my family's future."

"And you still think he'll help you do that. You-Know-Who."

Regulus did not, but he could hardly say that here. He had verified that Francis was alive. He now had to save Sirius.

"I do what benefits my family. My wife and my child."

"Oh, so you do like women as well, then, if you've managed that. Congratulations, I suppose."

"Thank you."

"Are you happy?"

It was not the question he had been expecting. He did not know the answer.

"I am learning to love her, as my parents promised I would. The war is a difficult situation."

"You're emotionally repressed, Regulus, that's what you are. Do you even know why you are without them telling you what to be? Who to like? What you're going to do with the rest of your life?" Francis spoke as if he had to speak his mind before his body failed him. "What do you want, Regulus Black?"

"The wizarding world to remain the way it should be. My wife and family to be safe from harm. My brother, too, for what that is worth. You know all of this, Francis, because I have told you before." The twist in his stomach had returned. "I do not know what else. My own survival." A pause, his own heartbeat so loud he wondered if Francis could hear it. "I wanted you."

"I've been seeing someone in the Order," said Francis. "I'm not telling you who, I know who you know."

It felt as if it was a stab of a knife.

"I wanted you, too, though," he said. "You made your choices, I made mine. In a different world, we might not have ended up this way. I suppose you've got a chance to rectify it all. I don't know if you dare. I don't know whether it's everything you wanted it to be. Is it?"

Regulus had a retort ready, almost, when the Healer bustled in, a tray full of smoking potions.

"Visiting hours are over," she said, in a tone that anticipated argument. "They resume at two, if you would like to come back."

"My parents will come this afternoon," said Francis. Dismissal. Regulus turned to go. "I never did thank you," he said. "So thank you. Make some decent choices, Regulus. Think for yourself, yeah?"

Regulus thought. He walked from St Mungo's down some unspecified Muggle street, a place he had never before thought to go. Because why would he? He knew where his place was and it was not, and would never be, here. He knew what to expect from his life. He knew what he had expected to expect, at any rate, and it was not this.

Francis was safe, but that in itself had caused its own problems, had it not?

His Dark Mark burned.

Regulus emptied his mind as best he knew how.

He Apparated to where the Dark Lord called him, and managed to retain his composure when he saw where it was that he was standing. He was in the centre of the room he had stood in last night, crouched in over the body of a friend that he had thought fated to die. He could not think of that. He remained quiet, impassive, as the room became thick with dark cloaks, rich robes, the crush of Death Eaters anxious to please their master.

"We have been betrayed," said the Dark Lord. "Or we have been failed. MacNair does so claim that there is a betrayal in our ranks. That somebody, someone amongst my most faithful, came here last night and removed our captive. Perhaps for themselves. Perhaps to save them. We do not know."

Regulus must not betray emotion. Betray anything.

"MacNair, our dear friend, may, of course, be attempting to cover for his own incompetence. After all, the Dark Lord always knows when somebody is lying. I do not detect disloyalty."

"The Order," said Nott. "The Order must have found him. I know you will be correct, my Lord, and that if you do not find disloyalty then there will be none."

"I do so hope you are right, because we all know the punishment for such a crime, do we not? Death, and perhaps not a fast one."

Regulus knew.

"MacNair, Nott, Crabbe. You will be punished. No matter what occurred here, you have failed me. The rest of you will resolve my problem. You will kill each and every member of the Order of the Phoenix that you come across. You will not leave the job for later. Francis Macmillan will die when we are able to get to him, and so will Sirius Black. James Potter. Dorcas Meadows. Philomena Prewett. Peter Pettigrew. The rest of them, and last, but not least, Albus Dumbledore."

Regulus had to warn Sirius. Now.

 **a/n: We have two more chapters left of part two, which is pretty exciting, given that I wrote some of the bits in this chapter and the next two back in February or March.**


	49. Chapter 49:Entanglings

**Chapter Forty-Nine: Entanglings**

 _Hermione_

 _August 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

"It's going to be soon," said Hermione. "I know it is."

"Regulus?" asked Ginny. "He's not supposed to go for the Horcrux for about another month." She stood on the sofa on her tiptoes to check the timeline, with all its many crossings-out and redoings. "Yeah. September '79."

"That was the date on the memorial stone my dear mother had installed for him," said Sirius. "I, obviously, wasn't there."

"But we've made all sorts of changes," said Hermione. She'd assumed they would have all learnt by now not to take anything for granted. She'd also learnt through years of experience, mainly with Harry and Ron, not to assume that anyone had grasped anything.

"Assumption is dangerous," said Luna, who did at least appear to understand.

Ginny bounced upwards, landing neatly on her bottom on the sofa with her legs crossed. Sometimes, only sometimes, Hermione was jealous of her ability with that sort of thing.

"Well, balls," said Ginny. "Are we going to be ready?"

"By we, I assume that you mean me," said Hermione.

"Assumption remains dangerous," said Luna.

"I assumed my brother was a heartless, Death Eater bastard," said Sirius. "Turns out that isn't true."

"Aside from the fact that your parents were married," said Ginny.

Hermione stopped listening to the discussion.

She had a busy calendar of social engagements over the next few days, something which made her hope Regulus would not act too soon. It was easy enough for her to mess around with their little project when she was here, but when she was out with the Blacks she could barely go for a wee without Walburga knowing all the details. All her sneaking around had led Sirius' mother to assume that she had some kind of bladder problems.

"We should have a name," said Ginny. "For the project. Like the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters." She grimaced. "Well, not like the Death Eaters. You know what I mean."

"Order of the Black Dog," said Sirius.

'Self-obsessed bastard," said Ginny.

"My parents were married."

"Oh, fuck off."

"Anyway, Dumbledore named the Order of the Phoenix after his pet, and Padfoot is basically a pet."

"Except he's you."

"Excuse me, but I would like to point out that this conversation is doing Hermione no good, however stress relieving that it may be for the two of you."

Hermione was becoming incredibly grateful for Luna.

She just had so much to do, and so much to maintain if she wanted to keep their cover. It didn't do just to be decent; Walburga was vigilant for any signs of anybody slipping up. She had to make sure that they believed that she was their relative, and that they were safe to talk freely in front of her. Regulus had come close to confiding in her but had not. Sirius had assured her that he had always been adverse to confiding in anyone, but she couldn't help but feel that if she could just have been a little bit better, a little bit more convincing, he might have done it.

But then she wasn't supposed to interfere too much, and would that have been interfering?

"Hermione," said Sirius, pulling her from her thoughts. Ginny and Luna had left the room. She could hear them arguing in the kitchen.

"Hermione," he said again. "Stop panicking."

"Easy for you to say," she said, but she felt her heart rate slow as he put his arms around her.

"I love you," he said.

"Love you too." She turned her face upwards and kissed him. "I still hate your family."

It had become a thing that they did, that she would remind him from time to time that she did still hate his family. Perhaps it made too much light of the situation, she didn't know, but he seemed to like it. She'd learnt in her last war that it was the little things that mattered, the little things that made each of them a tiny bit less on edge. That, and decent food. Which thankfully they had here.

"Good," he said, kissing her back.

The kissing made her forget almost everything. The feel of his lips on hers, parting slightly, the sound of his breathing growing quicker.

"I do have to go and see them," she said. "However much I hate them."

"Balls," he said. "Can't you stay for five more minutes?"

"Five minutes? You're losing your touch in your old age, Sirius Black. I'd not risk being late for your mother for something so mediocre."

He stuck out his tongue.

"Yeah, alright. Whatever."

"Oh Merlin, you're talking like Ginny again. Can you try to stop talking like a teenage girl from the 1990s?"

"No."

"Fine."

"Whatever." He did a little hand flick.

She poked him with her foot, extracting herself from him and standing up.

"I'd better go. I promised to drop in and see Francis Macmillan after lunch with some of Walburga's more distant cousins. All the men wear the Dark Mark." She shuddered at that. "The only good thing about it is that they might gossip, if I seem vapid enough. Adeline and I will have to talk about fashion or babies."

"Francis dies," said Sirius. "I checked."

Ginny wandered back in, clutching a bowl full of cereal.

"When?" she asked. "Can you remember?"

"Today," said Sirius. "Well, two days after he was attacked. In St Mungo's. That's all I can remember."

"Hmm," said Ginny. "The Death Eaters caught up to him, most likely." She grimaced. "Not the first time. They got some Auror that way a few weeks ago. We don't know how they got in, there's nobody suspect on any of the visitor books as far as Moody could tell."

"I'm going to leave you to work with that one," said Hermione. "I've got a lunch to attend."

"Sound shit," said Ginny.

"Indeed," said Luna, from the doorway.

Grimmauld Place felt more oppressive than usual. Perhaps it was Regulus' behaviour. He alternated between his perfectly behaved, usual self and a erratic, confused-looking man when he thought that nobody was looking at him. Hermione witnessed him staring blankly into the middle distance more than once, or else rearranging things in his vicinity that didn't need any rearrangement.

"Is something the matter?" she asked him.

"I am as well as can be expected," he replied, continuing to rearrange books on a shelf.

Her attempt to delve into his state of mind was immediately ruined by Adeline, dashing into the room with her hair partially pinned up on her head.

"Lyra! Oh, Lyra! You are here! Regulus and I have something we wish to tell you, don't we?" She wrapped her hands around his shoulders and waist as she spoke. Her face was beaming, wide and happy and glowing with pride. His was tight, nervous, tense.

"We do," he said.

"Regulus and I are going to be having a baby!"

Hermione's heart almost stopped for a moment. A baby? Fucking hell. How, what, what on earth would that do to everything?

She couldn't think like that. It wasn't fair. The whole point of this had been to allow people to live their lives as they should have been able to if not for Voldemort, and this fell into that, didn't it? So it was a good thing. Not something to panic about. Or at least half of each, anyway.

"Congratulations!" she said, with the happiest smile she could get. "I am so happy for the both of you!"

She leant in to hug Adeline, a formal kiss on each cheek and a tight embrace, because she did actually really like this girl. She wanted her to have happiness with Regulus.

"Thank you! We are trying to decide whether we should ask the Healer to tell us if it is a girl or a boy. Narcissa says that she would have it no other way than to know, and Walburga wishes for us to find out, too, but I quite like the idea of the surprise. What do you think?"

"Wait, maybe?" said Hermione.

"I think so too, like I said, although obviously to know would help us to prepare a name."

Hermione lost track of Adeline's train of thought as she went off on a list of all of the names they had considered, discussions of the various family members' reactions to the baby news, and other things Hermione paid no attention to. She was watching Regulus. He had talked more than once about his desire for children, and seemed more than sincere, but this was not the expression of a man who looked happy.

"Don't you think?" asked Adeline.

"Maybe," Hermione replied, hedging her bets.

"He's got worse," confided Adeline, later, over tea. The wizards of the Black family had disappeared into the library for whisky, and the ladies were taking tea in the drawing room. Archaic, it really was. "Regulus. He's been acting even more strangely than usual."

"Since he found Francis," said Hermione.

"He didn't find him," said Adeline, one eyebrow raised and her teacup paused halfway to the mouth. "You did. He told me so himself."

"Regulus sent me there," said Hermione. "Do you remember that night?"

"Of course," said Adeline. She put her hand to her stomach. "I know they say that a baby can cloud your mind, but I don't think that happens quite yet. I remember you arriving in the house, and Regulus giving you advice, and then he visited Francis in St Mungo's the next day."

Hermione paused. None of that had happened. Or not how she remembered it. So why did they have such different memories?

A Memory Charm was the most obvious solution. Hermione had enough experience with those. But what motivation would anybody have to modify either of their memories? Regulus had found the body of somebody that Death Eaters, the people he was allied with, had decided to attempt to murder, and so he certainly had enough motive. But why Adeline, and why not her?

Unless he had simply not had the chance, yet. She'd have to be on her guard. Yet another thing to watch out for. Maybe she could find a Pensive and put her memory of that night in, for safekeeping. Or describe it to Sirius or Luna in detail.

Or something.

"I wonder why," said Adeline. "I feel rather as though there's something going on here that I am not aware of."

"There is," said Hermione. "I'm sure of it." She didn't have to explain why.

"Maybe we should go to visit Francis," said Adeline, nibbling at a biscuit. "If I do not need to be sick, first. Morning sickness is not well named. It doesn't stop at lunchtime."

Hermione was incredibly reluctant to take Adeline with her, but she wasn't one to be told no to, it turned out. She found herself trailing through the waiting room at St Mungo's, with Adeline storming ahead and a creeping feeling that this was all about to go horribly wrong. In truth, she'd had that feeling for some months now, but that was beside the point. It was now about not making the feeling get any worse.

"Hello, cousin," she said, greeting him. He looked better than he had done the last time that she visited him.

"Hello," he replied. "Not brought your cousin?"

"I believe Regulus is busy," said Hermione.

"Good. And you are?"

"Adeline Black. The wife of Regulus Black. We have met many times at parties."

"To tell the truth, I'm not usually paying attention to the witches."

"I had assumed as much at school." Adeline pulled her cloak around her and fixed him with her best imperious look. "Now. We have a debate that we wish for you to settle."

"I'm not really in any fit state," grumbled Francis. "Can't you find somebody else to be your arbiter? Healer Wright will be have your, well, she's opposed to violence, but she'll come and shout at you."

"There isn't anybody else," said Hermione. "Who was it that found you, the night that you were attacked?"

Francis gave them a quizzical look. "Regulus. Which you would know, because he sent you to take me here, and you told the Healers some lie."

"That is not what I have been led to believe," said Adeline.

"Well," said Francis. "Someone's lying, then. And I don't think it's me, even though my memory of the events of that night is patchy."

"I don't think it's you, either," said Hermione.

"And therefore," said Adeline, "it leaves us with one option for the source of the lie."

"Regulus," said Francis and Hermione, at the same time.

Hermione wasn't surprised, not really. For him to have told them would compromise him, in the case either of them weren't trustworthy. It was sensible to assume nobody could be trusted, when he was basically being a traitor, but it still stung a little bit.

Unless, she realised. Unless he thought that they would be interrogated after his death.

Balls, as Sirius would say. Balls.

"We will resolve this," said Adeline. She quickly looked around, and with a wave of her wand checked that the room was clear. When she was satisfied, she continued. "We must help Regulus to leave the Death Eaters."

"No offence," said Francis. "But how are you going to do that? Nobody leaves. You-Know-Who sort of takes personal care of that."

"I may be just seventeen, and my ambitions more focused on family and the home," said Adeline, drawing herself up to her full, not very large, height, "but I am not to be treated as insignificant. I do have some use."

"Your husband took the Mark at seventeen, I suppose."

"An act of which I did not approve."

"You said that to him, yet?"

"Persuasion is not so simple as saying what you wish for the other person to do. Is it?"

"No. Fucking hell, I told the bastard enough times."

Hermione did not think getting these two in the same room was a good idea.

"Perhaps we should allow Francis the recovery time, before we begin plotting how to rescue Regulus."

Because it was her job. All of this hinged on him going to that cave.

"You're talking like I agreed to be involved," said Francis.

"I believe that you already are," said Adeline. "My husband appears to have modified my memory to protect you. I do not think you could be much more involved, even if I do not understand exactly how."

"That's details," said Francis, attempting to wave his hand dismissively.

"I do understand what went on between the two of you. Perhaps Regulus believes that he Obliviated that from me, or perhaps he does not know what I knew."

"It's unfair to hex a man while he's down," said Francis. "And I couldn't be more down if I tried, unless I was dead."

"The Death Eaters know that you've survived," said Hermione. "I overheard the cousins talking of it."

"Almost like a spy, you are," said Francis. If only he knew what she did.

"What I am saying," she said, "is that we ought to be aware of the potential for reprisals. Or a second attack direct on you."

"No way they could get into St Mungo's, all wands firing," said Francis. "We should worry about Regulus."

"He won't do anything immediately," said Hermione. "And we had best get back, else Auntie Walburga will have questions. As will Regulus. I think we all believe it best if we do not tell him about this discussion."

"Obviously," said Francis. Adeline nodded.

They left St Mungo's, Adeline's face much paler than it had been when they walked in. Her hand shook slightly on her wand as she charmed the doors to open ahead of them.

"I do not know how we will explain our absence," she said.

"There's a new wizarding baby shop on Diagon Alley, isn't there?" asked Hermione. "If we go there and buy something, we can convince Auntie Walburga that we just simply had to go shopping."

"I like to think you would have been in Slytherin with me," said Adeline, taking Hermione's arm and linking it with hers. "Let's pretend to be two witches out to shop for baby things, as if we do not have any other concern."

If only, Hermione thought. If only it could be that easy.

They ended up with a crib, made of willow and imbued with charms for protection and safekeeping. Walburga was suitably impressed, if somewhat annoyed that Hermione hadn't apparently made enough time for some distant cousin that she hoped to marry her off to.

"I am so glad that you are showing such an interest in Regulus and Adeline's child," said Walburga. "I was beginning to think that you were the kind of witch that did not wish for children."

"I do want them," she said. Sirius had once said that he didn't, but she'd decided to deal with that at a later date.

"Well, I intend for you to have chosen your husband by the end of the year. You are twenty-four, that is far too old to be continuing to, well, wait for whoever it is you are waiting for. The wizards available will only decrease, or you will find yourself with a widower."

"I will choose when I am ready."

"You will choose by the end of the year, or your choice will be made for you."

 _Remus_

 _August 1979, Grimsby_

The people they'd rescued had been put in a safe house in Grimsby. Remus had been there once on holiday, and it was a place where nobody took much notice of yet another group of bedraggled, untidy people being herded from a train and onto a street. It was large enough to be anonymous, and small enough that nobody from outside cared much about what was going on there.

Perfect, in short.

Remus was careful in getting to the house. To turn up in the middle of a house full of confused Muggles would cause an outcry. Most of them were, entirely reasonably, wary of magic usage. Instead, he Apparated to Cleethorpes, just down the road, and boarded a Muggle bus. A couple of changes, just to confuse anyone who had managed to follow him this far, and then a short walk from the bus stop to a block of flats. You could see the docks from the top of them, but Remus wasn't really here for the view.

"Aconite," he said, at the door. He didn't like the password, but it was what it was.

"Hello," said the response, and the door swung open.

Helena was the perfect safe-house host. The kids caused enough chaos to mask any unusual noises from the flat, and she was kind to the people they had to put through the houses. Nobody in the Death Eaters had a clue who she was. And while Grimsby wasn't her choice of home, she put up with it well. She'd be on in a few weeks, anyway, to some other anonymous town.

"Remus. They're waiting for you. I'm going to take the kids down to the park, if that's alright, while you're gone. Neighbours think you've come to fix the boiler."

"That's the cover." He indicated his overalls and the canvas duffle bag he was holding. "Though I did try and persuade Moody that a van would be a better cover than the bus."

"You could be a skint plumber," she said, looking at the black bag with a raised eyebrow. "Most of them don't have a clue about Muggle things. Thankfully, I don't think the other side do, either."

"Less of an clue than Moody, even."

He left her to it, going into the living room. The women they'd rescued from the Death Eater's clutched were assembled in there, varying levels of fear on their faces. He didn't much like doing debriefs. James was better, or Peter, but they were both busy, and Marlene was dead, and Remus knew what he was supposed to be looking for.

"I'm sorry I'm going to have to drag up some things you don't want to think about today," he began, finding no seats free and choosing instead to sit on the floor. "I'm Remus Lupin. You might remember me from the night, well, you know."

"We know," said one of them. "Doubt we'll ever forget."

"You won't," he said. "Best you can hope for us to come to terms with what happened to you."

"Have you seen things like this before? Helena, the woman here, she won't tell us anything."

"More than you could imagine. She's right to. The more you know, the more dangerous it is for you. So that's my job. Tell you enough that you can make sense of what's happened, but not enough to traumatise you."

Another woman spoke. "Go on, then."

"Alright. So you'll know that we can do magic. There's a sizeable population of people in Britain who can do magic. Some of them don't much like people who can't. They're trying to do some fairly nasty things, and some of us are trying to stop them."

"You don't need to talk to us like children," said a third woman, with short, blonde hair and a thin nose. "We're all adults."

"Fine. So there's a war. Between the Death Eaters, who think magic should be restricted to those who come from families who already have magic, and the Order of the Phoenix, which I'm part of, who don't really care who has magic. As long as they don't try and kill people with it. Our government, the Ministry of Magic, says they're fighting the Death Eaters, but they're useless. The Death Eaters periodically attack families where there's a Muggle or a Muggleborn witch or wizard."

"And we are Muggles?"

"Yes. You are."

"Great. So some fucking idiots are trying to kill us, and nobody's telling us?"

"Basically. The Minister, our Prime Minister, effectively, to use Muggle terms, has spoken to yours, but not unsurprisingly, she doesn't want to do anything about it. Says it will scare people, which it will."

"She's unfit for office," said the blonde woman.

"Not a Tory, then," said Remus. "To be fair to Callaghan, for all his faults, he was slightly more receptive to doing something to protect you all."

"Definitely not a Tory," said the blonde woman.

"I voted for her," said another woman, near the back.

"This isn't a debate about politics," said Remus.

"How do you know about our politics, if you're not a, what was it?" asked the first woman who had spoken.

"My mother is a Muggle, and has a lot of opinions on politics."

"So Muggles can have magic kids?"

"Yes. My father is a wizard. Some people have two wizarding parents, some one, some none. And I've always believed they're all as good as each other, but like I said, some people don't. Anyway. I'm explaining all of this because we're trying to prevent what happened to you happening to anyone else. I'm going to have to ask you if you can tell us anything that would help that. Then we can try and get you all out of here. It can be quite dangerous returning you to your families, so we're going to be collecting each of your families, and then hiding you collectively. Hopefully, the war will be over soon, and you'll be able to return to your lives."

"And if it isn't? I don't want to stay in hiding for years. I'll hide for a few months if I really need to, but then I'm going home." The Tory folded her arms.

"I'm not sure you understand. The other side will find you. They will kill you."

"I can hide myself."

"You probably could, if you were hiding from other Muggles. I don't doubt you."

"Why us?" asked the blonde woman.

"The only link we can find between all of you is that all of you possess a relative who was born to magical parents, but didn't possess their own magic. Squibs, they're called, but it isn't a very nice term."

"My father was a Squib," said of them. A ginger girl in her mid-twenties, he'd estimate. "I didn't know, until my sister got a letter to go to a school called Hogwarts. For witches and wizards. He ripped it up and set fire to it, said no kid of his was going to have magic."

"That would not be an extreme reaction. Squibs are somewhat outcast from our world, even in the kindest of families." It was a story he felt like he had heard before.

"So what were they going to do with us?"

"That's what we don't really know." He tried to smile in a way that suggested kindliness and concern, not incompetence. "I'd like to know what happened to you all, while you were in there. Everything, even if it's seems inconsequential, it might help us here."

He gathered much inconsequential information over the course of an hour and a half, but a few nuggets that might be useful. That added to the picture, at any rate. Remus was starting to think that he might have worked out what was going on, but he didn't want to believe his own judgement on that.

"They took a couple of us off," said the ginger girl. "There was more of us at the start. I think we lost three, didn't we?"

"Four," corrected the blonde. "There was another before you got there. They disappeared off into a separate room and they didn't come back."

"We don't know what they were doing. There wasn't any noise."

"Thanks," he said to them all, when he'd got what he could. It seemed like they knew nothing, or nothing that they hadn't already worked out for themselves. But it had to be done. "I know it's a bit cramped here, but we'll have you out in the next day or so. We'll be moving you gradually. I think there will be somebody here to start moving you on in about an hour."

He went into the kitchen, where Helena had the kids eating cheese sandwiches.

"Alright?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I'll be glad to see the back of this place," she said, waving her hand at the window. "Where am I next time?"

"You'll have to wait for Moody to tell you that," Remus replied. "I'm not allowed to know unless I'm visiting. I don't know where these people are off to, even."

"Makes sense. Dangerous world out there."

"Yeah."

"I worry, you know. My mum was killed last December, and she'd never done anything to draw attention to herself. But she was a Muggleborn, so, boom."

"I never knew that. I'm sorry."

"She died trying to save my kids. It was all luck. Thankfully her neighbours turned out to be magical, and they helped. Your girlfriend was there, I think."

"Philomena?"

"Yes, her. Peter told me that you were seeing her. Her and her housemates came out and started fighting the Death Eaters. She looked after my little ones until I was able to get there."

Philomena had never mentioned anything like that. Had she? Remus paid attention. He always did.

"Philomena Prewett? Are you sure?"

"I've seen her since. With Peter, who of course persuaded me to join your lot. She's a nice girl." Helena stooped to pick up a piece of sandwich that had been hurled across the floor by the smallest child. "Nice, please, you lot. I have to say she's nice, I owe these lot to her and her friends."

"What were their names?" She'd been with that Lovegood girl when they first met, and some big bloke who'd been killed.

"I don't know the blonde one. The other girl was Hermione, I wrote to her a few times. And the bloke was Sirius. Mum claimed he was Sirius Black, you know, the one from the Order, but that must be a lie, because I asked him."

"Asked him what?"

"If he was living in a house in Saltburn-by-Sea with three young witches, of course. He said he wasn't, but sometimes he wished he was. Are you alright, Remus? You're looking peaky. Do you need me to fetch you anything? I've got stores of all the basic first-aid potions here, or Muggle remedies if you prefer?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Just a tension headache. It's been a long day, and, well, what I'm investigating isn't pleasant."

"No," she said. "I don't know as much as you do, of course, but it sounds horrible. Do you think Moody's right? That it's some kind of experimentation?"

"I do."

He wasn't going to go into detail, not with the oldest of Helena's kids looking at him with so much curiosity. He'd tell her later, perhaps, or not. Moody was becoming increasingly keen on security and on people only having information on a need to know basis. He wasn't even sure if he was allowed to tell Philomena.

But apparently there were things she wasn't telling him.

And the story the ginger girl had told, about the father who had been a Squib and torn up a witch daughter's Hogwarts letter, that was her story. Wasn't it?

He wanted to go back and talk to that woman again, but he didn't have time.

"I'd better be going," he said. "Emmeline will be along in about half an hour to start evacuating you all out. You'll be last, of course."

"Keep safe," she said.

"And you."

He met James and Peter at the corner of Knockturn Alley and Diagon. They were supposed to be collecting some basic intel on one of the people suspected to be a Death Eater, but Remus couldn't focus. He just couldn't.

"Go home," James finally snapped. "You're less use than Mundungus Fletcher. Pete and I can handle this."

Remus went.

"Pub later," said Sirius, supremely unconcerned by Remus' lack of focus. It was hardly surprising. Sirius veered between a nervous wreck and entirely oblivious to the dangers of war, with no warning when he flicked between the two. "Prewett's coming. So's Phil, or other Prewett as she's now called. And a few others."

"I've got to finish up the reports for Albus," Remus said, though it was faint objections. He didn't have the concentration.

"We've got to live a bit," Sirius said. "Even in all of this."

Remus was living. He'd had a girlfriend since March. He loved her. He was becoming less and less sure that he knew who she was, but she accepted him and she loved him, and who was he to question her past, really? He had his friends. Marlene had died, yes, but the rest of them had made it this far.

And it wasn't his fault that he struggled to live the way that Sirius wanted him when he had so many unanswered questions.

"You don't remember an attack in a place called Saltburn, do you?"

Sirius pulled his thinking face. "No," he said, after a while. "I don't. There's been so many, hasn't there, that one could slip through the cracks. But no, I don't remember one. Why?"

"Been talking to Helena Bridlington."

"Oh, yeah, that. She's convinced someone was there using my name, but only because of rumour from her mum. I reckon someone didn't want everyone to know who they were, so used a fake name." He fluffed up his hair, a tic stolen from James. "Obviously they'd use mine. I'm attractive, clever, and good in an emergency."

"You're not," said Remus. "You're a showboating idiot who didn't get very good OWLs."

"Genius is not constricted by examinations," said Sirius.

Remus wasn't in the mood for this kind of talk.

"Besides," said Sirius. "You're afraid of cows. In a cow based emergency, I am the superior choice."

"Put your fucking shoes on."

"You coming to the pub?" Philomena asked, when Remus had got past Sirius and into the room he now had for his own, having abandoned Peter in their old shared room. James' stuff still dominated the space, or the things Lily had refused to allow in their home. It was mostly Quidditch memorabilia and paraphernalia, and the odd item of clothing. "It seems Sirius has decided we're having a night out, and I'm too lazy to argue. Got something I need to do at St Mungo's first, though. Bit time-sensitive."

"What?"

"You'll see when you get there. I can't tell you before."

"No. There's a lot of stuff people don't tell me."

"Oh, Remus," she said, getting up from the bed and going to wrap her arms around him. "You know what it's like. Moody'll come up behind us and declare instant death on us all if we're not careful."

"Did you used to live with another bloke?"

"Are you asking me to move in with you? It's not that I don't like the idea, in the future, but we've only been going out a few months. It feels a bit soon."

"No." Not that he wasn't flattered by the fact that she'd consider moving in with him in the future. She'd basically said that, hadn't she? Not here, though. Not with Sirius and Peter around. Just the two of them would be better.

It wasn't what he'd been asking, though.

"Helena Bridlington says you helped save her children, when her mum was killed. With a man who claimed to be Sirius Black."

"No idea. I think she's confusing me with somebody else. She's said things like that before to me. There's thousands of Prewett cousins, we breed almost as much as Weasleys, so it was probably another one of those."

It was slightly later, on the way to the hospital, that he realised none of the stories made any sense when you put them together.

 _Regulus_

 _August 1979, Grimmauld Place_

His brother was a difficult man to locate.

Regulus supposed that he had learnt from a master. Grimmauld Place was next to impossible to find, thanks to their father and his desire for secrecy and security. Regulus had often assumed him to be pushing the boundaries of paranoia. At this moment, he was grateful for it.

"Adeline, you should invite your family to visit us here," he said. "It is dangerous out in the world, these days, and I would prefer it if I knew you were safe."

She gave him a withering stare.

"I will do as I see fit, and you will do as you see fit."

She returned to her book. Something on the care of babies. Not going back to Hogwarts, her attentions had turned to this new role. And she suited it, he thought, but he did not know if she was happy.

His Dark Mark burned. He left.

It was not what he saw fit, but he could hardly do otherwise yet.

The Dark Lord was in a fretful mood. He was as still as he ever was in body, but his eyes roamed the room that he had chosen as his lair. A darkened room, with the velvet drapes pulled shut. Lamps burned, giving an eerie light glowing from behind the Dark Lord, sat as he was in a chair more akin to a throne. A two-handled golden cup sat at his side, more trophy than drinking vessel.

"Regulus, my faithful servant."

Regulus bowed his head, low and respectful, and controlled his thoughts as best as he could.

"My Lord."

"I am in need of an elf. I believe your family owns house elves, do they not?"

"We have one, my Lord. But does Bellatrix not own some? You have them at your disposal here, do you not?"

"Are you questioning the Dark Lord? No, perhaps that is genuine. Bella's elves are somewhat indisposed, I am afraid, Regulus. I am in need of one to help on my quest. And you have proven yourself loyal."

Regulus took a deep breath, his hand quavering. He did not much like Kreacher. And nor did he much like the sound of this.

"Kreacher will be delighted to be of service to the Dark Lord." Kreacher would, as ever, do what Regulus asked of him.

"Thank you, Regulus. You are always of so much help to me. I cannot promise I will return your elf in the condition you will give him to me, but then, some sacrifices are worth it for the greater cause, are they not?"

"They are."

"Thank you, Regulus. I will require Severus, now."

Regulus went home. He walked the floor again, that pacing that he so abhorred of himself. Adeline was in the drawing room, discussing names for the baby with his mother. Pollux, in his study. Arcturus would have been somewhere, no doubt, and his father, but they were not of use now.

He could stay. He could continue to do this, for the sake of the baby. It was the only way.

"Kreacher," he said. The elf appeared with a crack, his usual simpering expression on his face. "I have need of you."

"Whatever young master needs, whatever he needs, Kreacher will do it."

"The Dark Lord has need of an elf. Go to him. Be useful. Do as he asks, as if he was your master." And Regulus had a thought, a terrible one. "And come home, Kreacher. When he has done what he has need of you for, come home."

"Kreacher does as young master wishes, yes he does, Kreacher is proud to serve." The elf disappeared, the noise making Regulus wince.

He resumed his pacing.

He did not want to serve the Dark Lord, because serving the Dark Lord would mean continued requests to kill his brother.

He did not want to leave the Dark Lord, because he could not stay hidden forever. He could not keep his family hidden forever. Someone would die.

It was four in the morning, and Regulus had scarcely slept, when a cracking noise awoke him. Downstairs. Kreacher, unmistakably.

The elf was on the floor in the kitchen, shaking and convulsing as if he would not live much longer. Regulus got down beside him, because the elf's mouth was moving, but there was no noise to be heard from the height that Regulus stood at.

"Kreacher came home, young master. Kreacher came home."

"Thank you, Kreacher." Regulus could not remember an occasion upon which he had thanked the elf. "Where did he take you?"

Kreacher swallowed, as if unable to answer, his eyes widening at the question and the shaking increasing.

"A cave, young master. Horrible, dark cave, with many dark creatures. Kreacher could sense them, yes he could. They stayed below the surface. He had Kreacher drink a potion. Nasty, dark potion. Made Kreacher remember horrible things, young master, it did. Kreacher did not want to drink, but young master said to obey, so Kreacher drank. He, the Dark Lord, dropped a locket in the base of the thing. He left. And Kreacher, Kreacher came home, young master. Kreacher came home."

A locket.

That was what it was, then. Regulus had known, had he not? A Horcrux, that thing, a portion of a soul ripped screaming from a body by the destruction of another soul.

Hidden somewhere away to keep the Dark Lord alive. To make him immune to death. Immortal.

It was not as if it was unheard of to use a Horcrux. They were dark magic, indeed. Very dark. And as such, they were not commonplace. But it had, at one point, been something that was done. The Dark Lord was treading a path that others before him had trodden. He was no more power-hungry than any other who had sought to make themselves immortal and gather followers.

And yet it still did not appear to be something that Regulus could condone.

"Kreacher," he said. "Stay hidden. Do not leave the house. Go to your cupboard, the loft, somewhere. Do not allow yourself to be found, even by the family. Mistress Bella, Mother, anyone. Do you understand, Kreacher? This is an order."

The elf still shook, his eyes widening in fear.

"Kreacher understands, Master Regulus. Kreacher will do as you command."

"Good. There may be much riding on this, Kreacher. Go."

The elf disappeared. Regulus was left to his thoughts and to his decisions.

The Dark Lord had assumed that Kreacher would die there. He had left him for dead. So the chances of him finding out that he was here, of what Regulus knew, were minimal. Bellatrix could not force Kreacher to disobey a direct order from Regulus. He would be safe, and if he remained safe then so was Regulus' knowledge of the situation.

The Dark Lord was immortal, and he would kill as many purebloods as he wished, and Regulus did not want to follow him any more.

But one did not leave the employ of the Dark Lord.

He knew enough of Occlumency and the mind magics to remain safe in his presence for a while longer. But with every passing day it became less likely that he would be able to continue his deception.

Perhaps this was another reason he should talk with Sirius.

"I do not know what has come over you," said his mother, the following day, on leaving Malfoy Manor. "I did not bring you up to behave like that!"

He had not been attentive at the lunch with Narcissa and Abraxas Malfoy, no. Several times he had been forced to ask somebody to repeat the question they were asking of him. It was not the worst behaviour. It was not as Sirius would have behaved.

It was not as if he was seeking to make himself immortal.

"I am sorry, mother," he said.

"Is everything alright?" Lyra asked him. She had appeared agitated, too, Regulus recalled, but that was perhaps due to the constant talk of her potential suitors.

"I am merely busy at work," he said. She did not press the point, thankfully. He had come close enough to telling her far more than she needed to know already.

His mind did not care for work problems or the impending marriage of his cousin to some pure blooded wizard or other. It was solely focused on planning what in Merlin's name he ought to do next.

Talk to Sirius. That was what kept creeping to the forefront of his mind. He could rationalise that his brother could not solve the problem. He had, after all, recently tried to murder Sirius. But it was all that he had, and a glass of Firewhisky later it was still all that he had, and so he was forced to follow the instinct. However faulty it may prove to be.

He tracked his brother down to a pub the that evening, a seedy one in a wizarding backstreet of Manchester. The entire thing was grim; dark and dirty and nasty, as if it had never seen daylight or the touch of a house elf. Regulus steeled himself before entering. It was not somewhere he wished to go.

The one positive attribute this bar held was that he would not be found by one of his associates. They would not set foot here.

Sirius was at the bar, laughing with that Prewett girl next to him, the one who had killed Lucius. The werewolf was alongside them, holding hands with the girl. Others joined them, and they made their way to a table in the depths of the pub.

"Regulus?" asked Sirius, catching sight of him standing there. "If you come any closer, I'll curse you."

"Lads, lads, calm it," said one of Sirius' companions, a tall man whose hair matched that of the werewolf's girl. Another Prewett. A good family, in the main, if sorely misguided in recent years. Blood traitors, they had become.

A blood traitor as he supposed he was.

"Sirius, please," he said. "I would speak with you. In private."

"Whatever you want to say, you can say to this lot, too."

"Sirius, you might want to reconsider," said the werewolf. Remus Lupin, his name was. He stepped forwards, putting himself clearly in charge.

"I'm not going off alone with him," said Sirius, his eyes narrowed and his hand on his wand. "I know Voldemort wants him to kill me, I'm not fucking stupid enough to give him an easy chance."

"Sirius," said the Prewett girl. "Think about it. Does he look like a man who wants to kill you?"

And Regulus knew that he did not. His robes had a stain of blood on the hem, which Sirius had surely noticed by the way his eyes flicked down Regulus' body. He had not slept more than five hours the previous night, and he had not had the time to arrange his hair. And the face he had seen when he had washed it in the mirror; that was not his face. It was the face of a madman.

Sirius just grunted. "He tried before. Twice."

"Pads, sort it. If you won't speak to him, I will." The werewolf sounded as if he was bored, but he had the look of a wolf preparing to pounce. Regulus supposed that it was in his nature.

"I want to speak to my brother," said Regulus, as firmly as he could. "You are a," and he checked himself, "you are a friend of Sirius', it is true, but it is my brother I wish to talk with."

"Nice catch," nodded Lupin, and turned to Sirius. "Your move, Sirius. He's not cursed anyone yet, he's got that to his credit."

They muttered amongst themselves, Sirius and Lupin and the girl Prewett and the other Prewett, and a few others butting in behind. They all cared for his brother, that much was apparent. They liked him, as a person. This brash, defiant, irrational blood traitor of a brother had friends, despite everything that he had done, and Regulus had Francis, who still yet may die, and people he had considered inferior, and Adeline. Lyra, perhaps. His mother.

"Alright," said Sirius, finally. "I'll talk to you. Outside. But I'm bringing Remus."

"And me," said the girl.

"Phil," said Lupin, in a warning tone.

"Remus," she said, in the exact same voice.

They make their way to the outside of the pub, and down into a quiet alley between some shops and the back of a row of houses. Regulus shivered. He'd killed someone in one of those houses, once, in the name of the Dark Lord.

"Sirius," he said, turning to his brother in the back doorway of a shop. The door was purple, and the paint was peeling. "I want your help. I want to help you."

"Now there's a first," said Sirius. "To kill more innocents? You know I'm never going to come back into the family, so it can't be that. And mother and father wouldn't allow it. You have more money than me. So what could it be?"

"I wish to know how to get out," said Regulus. He thought about running, Apparating, getting away from this alley that stank of human waste. His instinct had been wrong before. Sirius could not be the answer, but he could warn him. "They are trying to kill you. They want you dead, whether I do it or not. They will kill me if I do not kill you."

"Out of what?" said his brother, and then his tone changed. "You want out? Out?"

"Quietly!" Regulus' palms were sweating, he looked over his shoulder.

"I think he's telling the truth," said Lupin. "Look at him, Sirius."

"Philomena?" asked Sirius.

The girl shifted on her feet, and put her hands to her mouth. "Sirius, I, I don't know."

"I… Sirius, please," Regulus knew this was his best hope. "Sirius. Adeline is expecting. We are to have a child. Please, Sirius, if you will not do this for me, then do it for the baby. I beg of you." And, ignoring the puddle of something he did not want to know what, he knelt on the floor at his brother's feet. "I cannot do this any longer."

Lupin pulled him to his feet, just as the wet began to seep into Regulus' robes. "Get up, you idiot, for Merlin's sake, that's piss. Or at least I think it is, and I don't want to know for certain. Sirius, we're going to help him, I don't care what you say."

"He tried to kill me," said Sirius. "This is a war."

"And we must not forget," Lupin countered, "that was are all still people. No matter who we thought it best to follow, we are human."

Funny, that, Regulus thought, that the beast would be the one to say something of that sort.

The man continued. "Would you prefer it if we sent him on his way, and in the fucking fear of being killed by Voldemort for insubordination he actually did kill you, or me, or Phil, or James, perhaps? Help the man, Pads. He's your brother."

"Your brother," echoed Philomena, her hands now crumpling her robes into balls. "He's your brother. But what if this was a trick?"

"Exactly!" said Sirius, pacing up and down the narrow alleyway. "He could be trying to get to a safe house so he can kill us all!"

"You're a shit judge of human nature if you can't see that he's being honest," said Lupin.

"Do not take me then," said Regulus, as he formulated a plan. "Take Adeline, and look after her, and the child when it comes. I do not need to be saved, but they do." He thought of Francis, and he thought of what Adeline would look like if she was in the same position, her belly swollen with child and her voice croaking his name in the way that Francis' had done. "Save them."

"We'll do that," said Philomena. "We should do that, at least." Her voice cracked, and she would not make eye contact with anyone in the alley.

"It's a trap," said Sirius. "I can't shake that it might be a trap." His eyes went wide, and, suddenly, he kicked out at the wall. "What has it come to that I can't even trust my own fucking brother!"

And Regulus knew, that whatever blame he had apportioned to his brother for this, some of it also resided with him.

"Please," was all he could say. He had an awful lot of regrets, in recent days.

"Meet us tomorrow at this pub," said Lupin. "Same time. We'll talk to the others, and see what we can do."

Regulus nodded, and then was left standing there alone as the others filed past him. Sirius with his distrust, the Prewett girl with her uncertainty, and the werewolf with his unreadable expression.

He could not rely upon them. The werewolf was the only one who wished to help him, and the word of a werewolf was not to be taken highly. They would listen to Sirius and the Prewett girl over him, they were both of good birth. And they did not seem to want to assist. But he would push them to take Adeline and the baby to safety, at least, he would do that for them. Whether or not someone was willing to save him.

He did not believe that he could trust his brother.

He did not want to go home, but it was the safest place for him to be, and so he did. Adeline sat in the sitting room, and, because he did not want to appear as if there was something wrong, he sat with her.

"I have been to see the Healer. The baby is doing well, she says. He or she will be born in April."

"A Spring baby," he said. "It will be perfect."

Regulus did not believe that he would be around to see the baby born.

She went to bed, and once again he was the only one awake in the house. It was a house that so often felt claustrophobic, with almost every relative he possessed living or regularly staying within its confines. There was always somebody who would wish to speak to you, even when you were engaged in something, always somebody to talk to if you wanted conversation. And tonight it felt as if he was the only person to have lived here. Isolated and alone.

He did not want to follow the Dark Lord.

He did not want Sirius to die.

He did not want to endanger Adeline and the baby, his parents, Narcissa, Lyra.

He did not want to further endanger Francis.

He had no clear idea of how he could manage all of that. Sirius would not come through, of that he was certain, but perhaps his warning would be enough. Perhaps they would listen to the Lupin. Perhaps something good would come of whatever was to happen next.

It was then that Lyra burst through the door.

"Regulus!" she shouted, her face puffy. "Regulus!"

"What is it, Lyra?" From nowhere a sinking feeling began to settle into his stomach.

"It's Francis," she said. "My cousin. Your friend. He's dead."

"How?" It did not matter, did it?

"I don't know. I went to see him, and they said he was dead!"

"I must go." He did not care if it was rude, if it was against the ways he had been taught to behave. He left her standing there, in the centre of the room, and he went to Sirius' bedroom.

It stood as a shrine to his brother, exactly as he had left it all those years before when he had left the family. Regulus sat on the bed. What would Sirius do, he wondered. What action would his brother take?

There was a locket on the table. It was catching sight of that which gave him an idea, a mad idea, an idea that was doomed to fail no doubt.

The Horcrux.

He would have to die, after all. He must. But he would die to do what he could.

What he must, perhaps. That was what he had said in the past, that long ago Regulus that seemed almost a different person. He would do what he must.

This was his end.


	50. Chapter 50: Waiting

**Chapter Fifty: Waiting**

 _Ginny_

 _August 1979, Order of the Phoenix Headquarters_

"It doesn't fit," said Sirius. He paced the floor, backwards and forwards and back again. "None of it fits."

"He's asking us for help, Sirius. Listen to him. He's your brother."

"He's a Death Eater. It could be a trap."

"It might not be."

Ginny sat and listened in the kitchen of Headquarters as the two went over and over the same arguments. She was hungry, or had been, but there was no way she would be able to eat. Remus sat perched on a stool, as Sirius paced, a mug of tea nestled in his hand. It went on and on, the discussion, until Remus seemed to snap.

"Could you forgive yourself if he died?"

Sirius stopped dead, in the centre of the kitchen. He looked at Remus, then Ginny, then Remus again, then down at his own feet.

"No."

"He might, you know. If he wants to go against Voldemort, and Voldemort finds out, he'll kill him. Do you know that?"

"Yes."

"Then we have our answer." He was reluctant, but final.

Ginny nodded.

Regulus was not supposed to die until early September, not according to what they knew. Could it all work earlier, or would she have to hold them off until that time? It could all still work. If Sirius and Remus rescued Regulus, if they took him in, if they saved him, it would not work. He would take no final stand. He would survive, yes, but they would never get to that Horcrux. They didn't know where it was without Regulus. Without Kreacher.

Fucking hell, she thought, fucking hell.

Had Kreacher already been? Maybe Hermione could get him to show her. He had to obey her, didn't he? But not if Regulus had sworn him to secrecy. Regulus could override Hermione. Lyra.

She could barely calm the shaking of her hands and the hammering in her chest, and even if she had been able to think of something to say her throat would have been too constricted to say it.

"Remus," said Sirius. "What if it kills one of you? Doing this? If I save my brother, but not you?" His voice faltered.

"Do you honestly think we'll survive this, anyway? I don't. Not all of us." He said it flatly, with finality, and without any emotion. As if he was talking about the weather.

Ginny's heart broke. If there was anything in the last year and a bit that had destroyed her, this was it.

Sirius stared, mute, at Remus. He picked at the wood on the stool he sat on, his brown eyes refusing to meet Sirius'.

"There's a chance some of us will. But look at how many die. Every day there's someone, Order or Muggle, or one of them. We're all in the middle of it." He continued talking as Sirius' face turned from blank to distraught.

"I know. I know!" He shouted that, as if begging Remus to stop talking. He flopped his arms pathetically, and his voice quietened. "Shit, Remus. Fucking shit. It's all fucking shit. I want to, I want to punch someone. Something. Shit."

Remus pulled himself from the stool, landing lightly on his feet, and the two men collapsed into one another. They stayed there for several minutes, and Ginny sat on her stool, and she began to question.

And, somehow, the first of those was that she no longer wanted to lie to Remus.

That, almost certainly, wasn't the fucking plan, was it?

"I'm going to talk to James and Peter," said Sirius. "They'll know what to do. They always know what to do. Don't they?"

"Hopefully," said Remus, releasing Sirius from their embrace. "I've told you what I think. Ask them. Talk to Dorcas. We said we'd meet him tomorrow, might as well make the most of the time."

"Okay," said Sirius. "Fuck."

He walked off, leaving Ginny and Remus alone in the kitchen. A rare feat, at Headquarters. There was almost always somebody in here, doing something, avoiding something. But tonight it was just the two of them, well, and the overwhelming urge to tell her boyfriend the entirety of the truth.

"What do you think?" Remus asked. "You didn't say anything."

"I don't know," she said, honestly. "I don't know."

"It's going to be okay," said Remus.

"You said we might all die. Some of us would, you said."

"I did."

"Do you believe that?"

"I don't want to," he said. "But I do."

"Yeah," she said. "So do I. How could we all survive?"

"Luck," said Remus. "Well, my mother believes in God. She'd say we have someone out there looking after us, intervening, trying to save us."

Ginny ignored that. She had to.

"I don't think Sirius' brother wants to kill him. He had the chance. He didn't do it. But that makes him more dangerous, doesn't it? If he thinks he has no other way than to do something drastic."

"That makes sense." Remus began the process of making a cup of tea, two cups, as if he was doing it without thinking of why. "Sirius will come round." He put the milk in before the water from the kettle. Sirius did it the other way around. "Actually, I don't know if he will. He always would have. But it's doing funny things to all of us, this war. James will tell him to trust Regulus. I'm certain of it."

"He will."

James would trust anyone, and that had been his downfall.

"I hate this."

Remus handed her the pink cup, her favourite, and took the blue one to the table for himself.

"It's shit," he continued. "It's like the whole thing is going to come to some kind of end, soon, except I don't believe it can, so the end is just going to be a massive mess of shit."

"I hate it too," she said. She found her way to him, and snuggled herself in, and this was somewhere that it felt marginally less horrible.

"Maybe we can all survive it." He shrugged. He didn't sound convinced.

He died, she knew. He died a little under twenty years from now, with years in between spent alone and lost. James and Lily died in a little over two years. Peter would betray. Sirius would go to Azkaban, and he would die, and there would be nobody left except Harry and little Teddy Lupin.

"No," she said. "No. You can't." She didn't cry, she wasn't the emotional sort.

"Why do you say that?"

"You said the same thing. That there's too many of you. You're all too involved. Probability."

And she burst into tears.

Ginny Weasley was not, and had never been, a crier. It didn't get you anywhere in the house she'd grown up in. She'd felt like she should, at times, but it wasn't how she dealt with things. Apparently, it was how Philomena Prewett dealt with these issues.

"I'm going to take you home," he said, wrapping his arms more firmly around her as she cried into his shoulder. "I think we've all had enough for tonight."

"No," said Ginny, as firm as she could be. "No, you can't."

"Why?" he asked. "You've never let me take you home. I don't even know your address."

"You just can't."

"Well, you're going to have to let me, I'm not letting you Apparate like this. Look at you. You'll Splinch yourself and there'll be nobody there to help you."

"I'll Floo," she said. "It's fine. I always get myself home."

"Let me help you." It was a plea, really, and it made Ginny feel terrible.

"I can't. I'm sorry, Remus. I'm going to Floo home, now, and I'll come back in the morning. Maybe the day after, I have to write my lesson plans."

"Yes. You'll be teaching in a few weeks."

"Exactly. I'm fine, Remus, honestly."

"Okay." He didn't believe her. "I don't understand why you won't trust me. Why you always act like you know something."

"I do. I trust you. I love you. There are just, there are things, Remus. There are things."

It was the worst explanation, and she watched his face fall. How far could she push him? How far would she have to push him? She did love him, she knew that. The lovely, kind man who stood in front of her, the man who had stood beside her as they threw themselves into danger. She loved him. And she was hurting him, this beautiful man.

"Okay. I'll see you when I see you."

"Yeah. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise."

"That isn't the point, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're supposed to be together. Do things together. Not keep secrets."

"It isn't a secret, it's just - it's more complicated than that."

"Okay. I'm sure I'll still be here tomorrow."

"Remus," she started.

"No," he said. "I love you. But I can't do this if we can't trust each other."

"It's just an address."

"It is and it isn't. I've asked before. You don't want to tell me, that's fine, to a point. What's there that you don't want me to see?"

She couldn't answer. A time-travelled version of your best friend. A girl who is pretending to be related to several Death Eaters and socialises with more of them. Luna.

"I'm going to go now," she said.

"Okay."

"I love you, too."

She stepped through the Floo, and looked back at him one last time as she did so. He still sat at the chair in the table, both of their mugs of undrunk tea in front of him, staring sadly down at her cup.

"Sorry," she whispered. If he heard her, he didn't show it.

Their house wasn't connected to the Floo. So she went to the Leaky, and Apparated from there, because she was fucking fine, no matter what Remus said. Sirius was the only one at home, stretched out on the sofa reading Witch Weekly, of all fucking things, and something snapped.

"Sirius!" she shouted. "How could you!"

To his credit, sort-of, he looked baffled. He dropped the magazine onto his own face and sat up, his hair a mess and searching for his wand. A reflex, she realised. A reflex coming from years of fucking, stupid, sodding, bloody war.

"What?" he asked. "What did I do?" He stopped looking for his wand when he saw it was her.

"You don't deny it," she said. The fight had gone, anyway. She didn't feel the urge to shout at him any more. Just to sleep, mostly. "Did Regulus come and beg for help from you in the original timeline?"

"Oh."

"He did, then."

"It isn't something I'm proud of."

"Like fuck you're not. Nobody would be."

"You've got to remember what it was like."

The fight returned.

"Got to remember? Sirius, I'm basically fucking living it! I'm there with the other you, with your friends, waiting for some kind of shit to happen and blow everyone's lives apart all over again. A Muggleborn family died this morning, by the way. Killed in broad daylight. Peter's distraught. Again. James is bouncing off the walls because he wants to do something about it all. Remus looks like he's going to cry. Regulus is begging for help, and I can't let them help him, and you're saying I need to remember what it was like. I've got to remember what it was like all of half an hour ago."

"Sorry," he said, which wasn't good enough. "I'm sorry, I didn't think."

"Neither did the other you."

"I'm not proud of that. I wonder if I caused him to die, that time."

"Probably."

It was harsh, she knew that as soon as she said it.

"Sorry." Her turn to apologise. "I'm sorry, Sirius."

"Don't be a git, Ginny. Or not just because I was one to you."

"It's just shit. Can't decide if I want to shout at you, drink with you, or just go out into the garden and cast a bunch of explosion spells on rocks. And I've got less than a week until I have to go up to Hogwarts for a fucking job I don't want."

Realistically, Hermione had the short straw. At least Ginny spent her time with people she mostly liked. But she felt like she had at least a reasonably short one.

Sirius said nothing.

"I don't really think you caused him to die," she said. "He's in a state. He'd probably get himself killed anyway."

"In that cave. Did Harry tell you what it was like in there? I want to know how he died."

"Inferi," she said. "That's what we assumed. There was a lake, you see. And you had to drink a potion that forced you to relive all your worst memories."

"Dementors," he said, and she saw his eyes go glassy, as if remembering the feeling.

"So Regulus drank it. And the only way," she continued, wondering if she should finish it, "to get relief was to get water from the lake. And that's when the Inferi rise up. Or they did for Harry."

He was shaking.

"Sirius," she said, noticing. She'd gone too far, she always did, when she was like this. "Sirius. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you, I shouldn't have, shit!"

"It's okay," he choked out. "It's fine. I asked."

"Yeah, but Remus asked, and I fucked that up too." She sat on the floor, and he joined her.

"What do you mean?"

"He wanted to bring me back here, because, well, I got a bit emotional about it all at Headquarters. He wants to know why I won't trust him."

"Ah." Sirius squeezed her shoulder. "If it helps, I'd fuck that up too."

"Doesn't," she said. It sort of did, though.

"We weren't always very trusting," he said. "I think we were taught not to be ultimately. Our thing became that we always trusted the four of us, but not anybody else. Lily was sort of reluctantly included, but there were things she didn't know, even. And then I fucked that up by not trusting Remus."

"Peter did," she said. "Peter's terrified. You're all terrified. You're just dealing with it differently."

"I used to be jealous of you," he said. "Getting to spend your time with them. I don't know if I want to, now. I don't know if I'd have the strength to see it all happen again."

"It isn't going to," she said. "We're going to fix it."

"And you'll fix whatever this is with Remus. You'll just have to bring him here."

"What?"

"You heard me. We'll sort out a time when everyone's out, and you bring him here. Or have Luna here, or something, she's safe enough. Just as long as you remember to call her Pandora. Remus is satisfied, and you're not feeling like you're keeping things from him."

"As many things." The distinction felt important, and Sirius must have thought so too as he smiled.

"Yeah. As many things."

"I hate all this deception. I'm sorry I said all that about Regulus."

"No, don't be. I wanted to hear it. Needed to, I think."

"It's shit."

"We should get that charmed onto a mug. Used to be a man in Diagon Alley who'd put whatever you wanted onto an object, in whatever colour you liked."

"After, maybe."

"Yeah."

"Remus might break up with me. Can't tell if he has, actually."

Sirius reached for her hand. "I know he's like my best friend, the only one I had left where we came from, but he's a twat if he does."

"Yeah, but he's right isn't he? I don't trust him. I don't trust him enough to tell him the truth about everything, anyway."

"Maybe we could."

Ginny's stomach swooped. "What do you mean?"

"If we swore him to secrecy."

"Maybe if it comes to it." She wanted to tell Remus everything, so badly. But if he broke up with her over it? Well, their relationship wasn't entirely what mattered. It was the whole thing. He'd find someone else. She might go back, anyway.

But she didn't fucking want to go back. She'd spent a year here, she could barely remember the future. She could barely remember the people she'd spent her whole life with.

"You know Hermione will refuse."

Sirius smiled. "Yeah. She didn't want to do any of this, did she? Took her months to come round. If we start now, we might be able to persuade her by Christmas."

"I've promised to go see Peter," said Ginny, deciding this particular moral quandary could be dealt with later. "Got some shit to be doing. You know how it is."

"Okay. Be safe."

"Survived this far, haven't I?"

It didn't make any difference if you tried to stay safe, she didn't think. Not if you'd joined the Order.

She arrived at The Crossing, and let herself in. Calmly as anything, Peter pointed his wand at her.

"What did I say to you about Remus, after the attack at Diagon Alley?"

"That he'd tell me about something in about three weeks." She lowered her own wand, in a mirror of him lowering his. "He didn't, by the way, he said it that evening."

"I also said that I'd have something to say if you were a bitch to him," said Peter. "He's upset."

"It isn't my fault," she said. "I want to be able to tell him the truth about something, but I can't."

"He's told you his secret." Peter stared her down, the most menacing she'd ever seen the still slightly pudgy man. "You could get him Azkaban if you wanted, for not being registered. He's trusted you."

"I know. Fucking hell, Peter, I know. I wouldn't do this if I wasn't trying to protect him."

"In case you haven't noticed, Remus doesn't need protecting. Not from the truth. Just from Death Eaters, like the rest of us."

"Okay. Fine. I'll tell him, Pete, I promise. Alright?" She wanted to cry, for the second time that evening, and Peter seemed to realise that now was the time to let it drop. "I want your help with something, anyway."

"Not Remus? Or James, or Sirius?"

"No, yours. Got to do something at St Mungo's. A job." Not technically an Order one, but if Peter didn't ask it could be another secret between her and everyone else. She sighed, slung her wand into her pocket, and turned to go. She didn't have the time for this, not in the narrow window she thought she had available to her. "Coming?"

He nodded, and hurried after her.

 _Sirius_

 _August 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

Once again he was the only one at home. He'd got used to it. Though he'd never done well with silence.

Being a dog helped.

He wandered around the garden, taking a nap in his canine form under the tree. He got up and turned back into his human form, made a sandwich. He made a lot of sandwiches, actually, and sat at the table hoping Ginny or Hermione or Luna would arrive home.

He ate the entire plate of sandwiches.

It was at this point that Sirius had a rather horrible thought.

Lucius Malfoy was dead. Had been for a while. And while Sirius didn't mourn that, not in the slightest, there was something about that fact that had been rankling for a few days.

And now he had it. Voldemort had given him a Horcrux. If the protector of the Horcrux was dead, what would Voldemort do?

Well, he thought, getting up and washing the sandwich plate by hand, it might be that, technically, he'd given it to Abraxas. Voldemort had been at school with Abraxas Malfoy, and he was alive, so maybe it was that he'd given it to him and he would trust in the hiding place for a little longer. He tried to remember where exactly Hermione had found the diary. Had it been in Lucius' study? The library? Abraxas' rooms?

Oh bloody hell, he couldn't remember. And he couldn't owl Hermione, because they didn't own an owl, and he couldn't Patronus her, because he still couldn't do a fucking Patronus. And anyway, it was hardly the message he could send while she was dealing with his brother.

"Hey, Hermione," he tried, out loud. "Or Lyra, seeing as you're faking being my cousin. Old Voldy-pants' Horcrux might be compromised, y'know, those bits of soul we're trying to kill before we kill him. Because we're time travellers with a mission and we've all got fake identities. Except I've got like three, because I keep fucking up. And Regulus, if you're there, kindly fuck off to the far side of fuck and then fuck off again. Also, forget you heard any of this."

It didn't work, did it?

He kicked the door.

Sirius Black did not deal well with inaction.

He watched three programmes on the television, and enjoyed none of them. The television went off, showing some kind of screen that suggested nothing was going to happen in the near future. He turned it off at the wall. He'd lost the remote.

Luna came home as he was standing on the sofa, moving from sheet to sheet of the paper pinned to the walls.

"Sirius?" she asked. "Is everything quite alright?"

"No," he said. "The diary. Lucius is dead. What if he decides it needs a new hiding place?"

"Oh," said Luna, dropping her bag. "That is rather a problem."

"Yeah." He went back to combing their notes.

"And I suppose we cannot fix it without Hermione. To talk to Narcissa, maybe. Get into Malfoy Manor."

"Honestly," said Sirius, deciding that there was nothing in the notes, and flopping down onto the sofa, "I don't know if there's anything we can do."

"I suppose not. To ask questions would draw attention."

"We could try and leave a replacement."

"That would only fool Narcissa and Abraxas, if either of them knew anything about it in the first place, and only if they knew the basics only. Perhaps not even Abraxas, if he was the one that was given it to look after. Lucius obviously knew something about what it did, else he'd never have tipped it into Ginny's cauldron in '92."

"It is a conundrum. Shall we tell the others?"

"Maybe not yet."

"Tell them what?" asked Ginny. "Are you talking about me and Hermione?"

"Maybe." He took a proper look at Ginny. "Thought you were only going to see Peter. Why've you got blood on your arm?"

"Someone at HQ had injured themselves, and Dorcas wasn't around to fix them up, so I did it." She looked up at the ceiling as she said it, rather than making eye contact.

"Fine." He thought she wasn't telling the entire truth, but then, he and Luna had just agreed to keep something from her. Except wasn't that how it had all fallen apart, at the beginning, when they'd first been here? He shook his head. He didn't want to think about that. He'd been an arse.

"Where's Hermione, anyway?" Ginny asked.

"With Regulus, still. She's trying to keep watch."

"Ah."

"I do not like this, much," said Luna. "This waiting. It makes me really rather nervous."

Sirius nodded. It did. It made his stomach fizz with worry, his palms sweat, and his brain unable to focus on anything at all.

"It's just a few more days," said Ginny. "To success or failure. I can't hold the other Sirius and Remus off from saving Regulus themselves much longer than that."

They sat in silence as the clock ticked onwards. Nobody made a move to go to bed, even once it crept past one o'clock, and almost to two o'clock.

"Need some sleep soon," said Ginny, but still none of them moved.

It was at five past two in the morning that Hermione finally arrived home, yawning and with dark circles forming around her eyes.

"Regulus?" asked Sirius.

"Today, I think," said Hermione. "Or tomorrow. Tomorrow is technically today. I don't like the early hours."

"That soon? It isn't meant to be until September." Ginny's eyebrow was raised.

"He's going to. I can tell. I've got Kreacher supposed to be standing guard for me. He's going to come and tell me before Regulus goes. Made him promise." She sat down. "I hate ordering a house elf like that."

"It's for the best," said Sirius. "Kreacher's suffered enough, but we can't do it without him." Pause. "Or Regulus."

"Any of us," said Hermione, firmly. "We can't do this without any of us."

"What are you going to say?" Luna asked. "How much do we tell him?"

In all of this, they'd never discussed that.

"The truth. I can prove it, or bits of it, anyway. Arcturus has a Pensive somewhere in his rooms, so I can borrow that if I need to, show him bits of my memories that back up our claims. We've still got the broken time turner." Her turn to pause. "We've got the Horcruxes, if it comes down to it. If he needs that sort of proof."

"Do you think we should tell him that?" Ginny looked concerned. "What if he's in front of Voldemort and thinks about them?"

"Why would he be in front of Voldemort?"

"Can we keep him safe? Him and his wife? If we can't, then he'll have to." Ginny flicked at her hair, twisting the ends of her bob around her finger. "And this isn't the end. We've got to kill Voldy, once we've got all the Horcruxes. And Regulus might be able to help us with that."

"If he wants to," said Sirius. "If he wants to." His brother would have done enough. His brother was to have been through enough.

"We've been waiting for this for so long," said Hermione, quietly. "I don't really know what to do now it's here."

Sirius understood. His life had felt for the last couple of months as if it was gearing up to just this. To the day that he could stand in front of his brother and be truly proud of him, knowing everything.

Luna went to work, the following morning, and Ginny off to go and talk to Peter again, and so it was Sirius and Hermione. It was the first time they'd had alone in a week or so, what with everything she had been doing, and he was determined to enjoy it. Hermione, on the other hand, was not. She sat in their bedroom, for she had moved in permanently now, somehow, without it ever being properly discussed and agreed upon. She was wrapped in a cocoon of the duvet, and wasn't moving.

"What's that matter?" he asked. Something was. She'd been fine yesterday, discussing how to deal with Regulus with the rest of them, and now, she wasn't.

"Your mother," said Hermione, looking grim. "Your mother says I need to choose a husband by the end of the year. That's four months away. That's how long I've got, or she'll choose for me."

"Fuck," said Sirius. "You'll be gone by then. It'll be fine. She won't be able to do anything. She can't. It's illegal."

"Illegal, yes, but I notice you don't say impossible. And your mother never did shy away from illegal. Not even for her own children."

"No." He felt a jolt of something horrible, but this wasn't about him. He could manage to not be that terrified little boy when talking about his mother, for once. "Fucking hell. Sadly, it isn't impossible, no. They did it to Bella."

"How?"

"I don't know. Regulus would know. He listens to those sorts of things, and I was always too busy trying to work out how to be a dick in the lessons. I learnt bits, but you know. Nothing really that useful. Fucking hell. Shit. Hermione."

"It'll be fine," she said. He had the distinct feeling he ought to be comforting her, not her him. Add it to the list of his usual failings, you could. Might as well.

"It's my family," he said, realising something. "I let you do the blood ritual to bind you to our family. It's that. That's how they do it. The genus. Fuck." It was his fault.

"How do you get out of it?" she said. "If she's doing it like that, does it matter that I've run away? If that's what I do. If Regulus sticks around, I should stay. To keep him safe."

"You can't. My brother's a big boy, he can look after himself. Well, he can't, not yet, but he'll be able to soon. We could take your genus away, but fuck, I don't know how to do that! Luna might. We could ask Luna."

"I don't want to marry someone she chooses."

"No, you don't."

They looked at each other for a moment, and she climbed onto him and put her arms around him. They melted into each other, all warmth and comfort and everything he had ever wanted. Safety. He'd laughed at James for describing Lily that way. He'd said that a woman wasn't supposed to be your safety. That was for your friends, the family you chose for yourself. But maybe James had been right, and he had been wrong.

And that gave him the idea.

"Marry me."

"What?"

"Marry me. She can't make you marry someone if you're already married."

"Sirius, that's…" she trailed off, looking hopeless. He'd fucked that up. Of course she didn't want to marry him. She was pretty and perfect and intelligent, had her whole life ahead of her, practically. He was an ex-convict who would never be good enough.

"Forget it."

"No. I won't. Yes."

"Yes?" Something leapt in his body. His heart, perhaps. He'd never understood those words James used, and now he was understanding all of them.

"I'll marry you."

"What?"

She laughed. Perhaps his face was as baffled as he felt.

"It was your idea. Don't look so bloody terrified."

"It might have been my idea, but," he wondered how to phrase this, "I didn't think you'd say yes."

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked. "Why wouldn't I?"

He had a thousand and one reasons, but decided to keep them to himself in case she realised that he was right about all of them.

"I'll buy you the most beautiful ring," he said, instead.

 _Adeline_

 _August 1979, Grimmauld Place_

Adeline Black, nee Fawley, was not as stupid as some would believe of her.

She might not be allowed to discuss politics, but she knew what it was that was going on in the wizarding world. Her mother had brought her up to be quiet, decorous, accomplished in the arts of a witch, intelligent enough to attract a wizard but not intelligent enough to scare them. Her Aunt Augusta, her father's sister, had encouraged her to think critically. She had married into a family that valued its women as much as it did it's men, and Adeline had always longed for that.

It was not the reason why she had married Regulus, but there was something else about him that had always attracted her. He was quiet, naturally, a good leader but kind. He did not fit in this world of darkness that he had put himself into. The others that had tried to court her had been mixed in with their dark lord, just as he was, but he was different. They were harsh men, and she was scared of most of them. She would never be scared of Regulus. No matter how much he had killed.

The other thing her Aunt Augusta had taught her was to be a good judge of character. To notice things others did not, in case they became useful later. In social situations, remembering whose daughter had done well in her music studies and whose son was good at Quidditch. But also in times where life was more dangerous.

And so she knew her husband, more than he knew that she knew. She knew of his liaisons with Francis Macmillan. She didn't mind, not really. Wizards did things like that before marriage. It was not as if he had chosen him. She knew of his work for his dark lord.

She knew that there was something wrong, something unbearably, terribly wrong.

She went down to the kitchen. She ought to tell the elves to begin preparing lunch, not that anybody here would eat it. Pollux was out, Walburga and Orion too. That left Regulus, pacing up and down in the library, who hadn't eaten for days, herself, who was struggling rather with the morning sickness, and Arcturus, who was half-mad and rarely bothered with meals. But it was her duty. That, and to save her husband, although she did not know how.

There were no house elves in the kitchen, just the sound of sobbing from a cupboard.

"Kreacher?" Adeline thought it was him. She opened the door, to find a writhing mess of elf in a tatty old pile of bedsheets. "Whatever is the matter?"

"Mistress Lyra gave me an order! An order to tell her when Master Regulus was to leave, and Kreacher promised, but Kreacher promised Master Regulus he would not leave the house, yes he did, and Mistress Lyra is not being here!"

"Oh."

She thought about it. Whatever Regulus was planning involved the elf, then. She had known that he was up to something. She crouched down, trying to ignore the wave of nausea that hit her whenever she moved too fast.

"You can tell me, Kreacher. I can help. I can write to Lyra."

"Kreacher is to be telling nobody, young mistress!"

"I am bound to Regulus," she said. "To endanger him, to go against his interests would harm me, would it not?" She looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. "If you want to save Master Regulus, should you not let him be helped?"

Kreacher looked up at her, his big eyes watering.

"Master Regulus is needing saving."

"I know."

He told her. He told her a horrible story, of caves and darkness and the Dark Lord. Voldemort, Adeline decided. He was not someone she wished to revere.

"And Kreacher does not know what Master Regulus is planning, young mistress, but Kreacher is knowing he will go there."

"Thank you, Kreacher. I will fulfil your promise to Lyra, and you will not have to leave the house."

"Can you be helping him?"

"I hope so."

She would write to Lyra. Lyra often seemed to know what to do.

Adeline had always had the answers to the problems that had come her way in life, the ones that she had expected of someone in her position. She had known how to attract a decent, pureblood wizard for a husband, how to pass examinations in appropriate subjects, how to attend and host parties and gatherings.

She was not prepared for war, or for dealing with whatever mess this was that Regulus had got himself into.

 _Dear Lyra,_ she wrote, hoping that it would do some good.

 _I am sorry to bother you, but Kreacher is most concerned that I get a message to you soon. He says that Regulus intends to leave tonight, and that you will know what he means. I date this letter on the afternoon of the eighteenth of August, 1979._

 _I fear that if you are not able to act, to do something, that the consequences for Regulus will be dire. I do not want to put this on you, dear cousin, but Kreacher says you wish to be warned, which must mean that you know something. Please do whatever it is that needs to be done._

 _If I can be of any assistance, I will be._

 _Your loving cousin,_

 _Adeline Black_

She signed it with a flourish. It would have to do.

Oh Regulus, she thought, as she watched the owl fly away. She put her hand on her stomach, feeling for the baby. It was too small yet to be felt, but its presence weighed on her.

Oh Regulus. What in Merlin's name had he done?

 _Luna_

 _August 1979, Ministry of Magic_

"Luna Lovegood?"

She had to try her very hardest not to look up at the sound of her own name, because that was not who she was here.

"Oh, I believe that you are mistaken," she said, allowing herself to look up slowly. "My name is Pandora. Pandora Lovegood."

"It is not."

Luna took a proper look at the woman who had been speaking, and was rather surprised. She had never seen her before, not in her year in the past or in her previous life. Luna supposed she did bear a resemblance to their old neighbour, but that was the closest match that she could get. Something in the face. She stood differently, though, tall and as if she was in charge. She wore long, brown hair plaited up away from her face in a complicated style and a dark, plain robe.

"It is polite to at least introduce yourself, when you are accusing others of being not who they are."

"Betty."

"Hello, Betty." Luna put down her quill and stood up, holding out her hand over her desk. "Pandora. Can I help you?"

"I think," said Betty, "that it is whether I can help you. And besides, your name is not Pandora."

Luna had always had a certain amount of self-awareness, and this was somebody who possessed the same capacity for vague statements as she did.

"My colleague will be back soon," she said.

"Really?" asked Betty. "And you have not used a Confundus Charm to convince the other occupant of this office that she in fact works for the Department of Magical Games and Sports?"

"I do not know if that is illegal," said Luna, "but it is certainly unethical."

"But you don't deny it."

"It is a very strange and very specific accusation to make of someone."

"And it is a very strange and specific thing to do. My sister works in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and there is a woman who has been turning up to work in their department for quite a long time now, claiming that she has always worked there. Ministry efficiency being what it is, it took them a while to work out that she did not. That she should be here."

"I know nothing of that. I don't go far from this office, unless I have documents to carry."

"Not of the investigation, perhaps, but the root cause. You are quite clever at answering questions."

"Ravenclaw."

"I'll bet."

Betty took a seat without being invited to. Luna did not think that it was particularly rude. The conversation had been going for a while.

This was not something she really wanted to deal with, today. The entirety of her house had been in a state the evening before. Ginny had been pacing the place, worried that she had offended Remus Lupin. Hermione was certain that Regulus would be going to the cave soon. Sirius was a predictable mess, and seemed to have proposed marriage. It was all somewhat of a mess, and it felt as though something was about to happen. All of her methods of divination also suggested that.

"What I would like to know, Miss Lovegood, is how you came to be here."

"I applied for work here after I left Hogwarts. I really am very busy, you know. There might be a better time for this." She looked at her diary. "Perhaps the 29th February?"

There was one the next year, she knew, but suggesting the leap day normally threw someone for long enough that you got the advantage.

Betty was quicker than that.

"Shall I rephrase? How you came to be in 1979."

 **End of Part Two.**

 **Author's Note: Yeah, erm, sorry about that.**

 **I'm going to do a bit of self promotion, which is something I always feel awkward about, especially when there's no update for poor Regulus. I've started a new fic on here, a Minerva/Tom Riddle soulmates fic. I've also added some one shots from this universe on AO3. I've not put them on here yet, probably will at some stage, but my user there is tabbycat or they can be found here if you take the spaces o** **ut: archiveof / works/16620842/chapters/38960657.**

 **Regulus will be back next chapter, promise, which is 3/4 written and will hopefully be around Monday/Tuesday.**


	51. Chapter 51: Regulus ---PART THREE---

**Chapter Fifty-One: Regulus**

 _Regulus_

 _August 1979, Grimmauld Place_

Regulus left his bedroom that night for the last time, locking the door with a jab of his wand. He made his way down the stairs, past his mother and father's room, the guest rooms, the bathrooms. He stopped on the first floor, paused, and then pushed open the door to the drawing room. It was delay, but perhaps it was necessary.

He had stood to be pledged to Adeline here, and here he had celebrated birthdays and Christmases. He had watched his brother be tortured by their parents for his opinions, and he had watched his mother blast Sirius from the family tapestry for daring to come to different conclusions than they had. Regulus had firmly sided with his parents, at that time. Sirius had been wrong.

Or so Regulus had thought.

He crossed the room and ran his hands across the material of the tapestry, lingering on the burn hole that had been Sirius. He had never wanted that for his brother. Regulus had always supposed that Sirius would see the light. He would realise that what he was doing was utterly and completely without point. He would submit to the views of their parents.

Now, Regulus was not so sure that Sirius had made the wrong decisions.

Sirius had been gifted with the bravery that he had not. No, Regulus had never been brave. When their parents had threatened them, Regulus had backed down. He had said his apologies, and then stood beside them as they attempted to break his brother.

It had been barbaric, that is what it had been. They had been boys, when it had started. Sirius had not even been at Hogwarts when they had used an Unforgivable Curse against him for the first time. His brother had pushed and pushed against their parents, yes, but they should not have retaliated as they did. Regulus could hardly remember a moment when his brother had not been sporting an injury or a bruise from his mother's or his father's wands. They were cruel. All for the crime of believing something different.

Regulus had never believed in what Sirius had.

Purebloods were supposed to be revered. They had hurt Sirius, they had tried to kill him. Regulus had tried to kill him. Francis. Francis was a pureblood. He had not been a blood traitor, except for having joined the Order. Their blood had been as pure Regulus' own.

Regulus found Andromeda's burn mark with his other hand. She had married a Mudblood. To his shame, Regulus could not remember the man's name. But Andromeda was happy, by all accounts, and he and Bella and Narcissa were not. They had done what had been asked and had been expected, and they were suffering as Andromeda and Sirius were not.

Why?

The burn marks were as familiar as Regulus' hand. After Sirius, his mother had made Regulus stand over the tapestry and recite the names of those who had been burned off and their transgressions. He had sworn never to be a disgrace, never to fail the family.

If he did as he intended to, tonight, he would be the disgrace. He would fall further than Sirius and Andromeda ever had. Further than Alphard, Cedrella, Iola, Marius and the rest. They had always been intended to fall from grace. Regulus was the heir, the shining star, the one who would fix the broken fortunes of the Black family.

Three disownments in one generation. It was unheard of. It was the end of the Black family, save for the baby growing within his wife, if Regulus did what he was intending.

Well, he thought it unlikely he would survive, and so perhaps he would not be disowned. They might not realise what it was he had done, and he may be seen to the public and his family to die a hero's death at the hands of the Order of the Phoenix, perhaps. If that was the way of it, Regulus would be pleased for the baby. The baby did not deserve to be given a disgrace for a father. He would have liked his contribution to be known, but it would be the better for the baby.

It would likely kill his father. It would enrage his mother, he would let down Pollux and Arcturus. Bellatrix would curse his name. Narcissa would cry.

Adeline would be alone, alone with the baby and his mother. Perhaps Lyra would help with the baby, and Narcissa would. If she was able. She had her own growing within her, and no Lucius.

He would be the failure, the disgrace, the death of the Black family, more so than Sirius had ever been.

And he was still determined.

The baby. He would be sad to miss the baby.

But the baby had a life ahead of it. The war had to end.

Regulus thought of the baby, and he thought of the others who he hoped to save. Francis, the way he had lain there broken and bloody, and the way he had looked at Regulus afterwards. Lyra, likely to be betrothed to some lackey of the Dark Lord. Adeline, hiding from him when she knew of what he had done in the name of the war. Those children. Sirius.

Kreacher. Of all the things Regulus thought he would make a stand for, Kreacher.

He took his hands from the tapestry, and placed his left hand into the pocket of his robes. His fingers tightened around the chain of the stand-in locket in his pocket, the one that had triggered the idea when he had found it in Sirius' old bedroom.

He could no longer stand for this.

Regulus Black was not a brave man, but he did what he thought was right. The Dark Lord was not the man for him, not now. Voldemort. He was no Lord of Regulus'. He would never again bow to a Lord that promised him the things that he wanted. Regulus was not to survive this, no, but if he did, then he made himself that promise. He would truly make his own choices.

He was not proud of what he had done, of what had led him here. But, perhaps, he could be proud of what he would do tonight, even though it was almost certain to lead to his own demise.

His fingers shook on the locket's chain at that thought. He was not prepared for death. There was so much yet that he wished to see and wished to do. He would never meet his child, see the face of his beloved wife as she presented him with the son that would carry the name of Black into a further generation.

He hoped for better for the child. He hoped for a boy, as they all did, but he hoped for one all the more now that he knew there would not be a second. Regulus had wanted three or four.

But this one would be the last Black, and may he make the choices his father was not brave enough to.

No, Regulus Black was not a brave man, but he was a hopeful one. Even after everything.

He steeled himself. The decision was made.

He must go.

He must be the man that Sirius would be proud of, not the man his parents and the Dark Lord and Bellatrix wanted him to become. Lucius had wanted that; Lucius was dead.

Regulus closed the drawing room door as he exited, leaving the tapestry behind.

"Kreacher," he called, as he passed the kitchen. "It is time."

"If Master says so," said Kreacher. "Kreacher does not want to go back there, no Kreacher does not, but if young master says so Kreacher will. Kreacher lives to serve Master Regulus."

"Kreacher," said Regulus, crouching down beside the house elf. "I may not come back with you, tonight. If I order you to leave, you will leave. You will destroy any item that I give you, and you will not tell the Dark Lord or any family of its existence. Do you understand?"

"Kreacher would not want to obey, Master Regulus, but Kreacher will,"

"You are a good elf," said Regulus. "And Kreacher? Look after Mother. She is unlikely to be pleased by my actions, so do not tell her or anyone else what I have done. I know I cannot ask you to go against her, but if you can do this one thing for me, Kreacher, please do so."

"Kreacher lives to serve young master, Kreacher does."

"Thank you."

This was his last time in number 12, Grimmauld Place. He thought of Adeline, above. He wished he could have left her a note, but only Kreacher could know. It was safest, that way. He would protect his family from reprisals, because they would come if it was known what he would do. It was a year since he had taken the Dark Mark, and he knew his fellow Death Eaters now.

"Regulus! Regulus!" A woman's scream, from above. This had not been in the plan. He shrunk into the shadows as he heard footsteps on the stairs, pulling Kreacher in beside him.

"Regulus fucking Black, oh Merlin, where are you, what have you done?"

He was certain the voice was Lyra's, now, but what was she doing here at almost midnight? And the language was unlike anything he had ever heard from his cousin. Quite unbecoming of a well brought up lady.

He should go, before he was discovered out of bed. A clatter of shoes on the stairs above him made that thought rather unnecessary. He looked up, and there she was, staring him down as if she was entirely on to what he was about to do.

"Lyra, my dear cousin," he said, acting for all the world as if he was just getting himself a night-cap. "What brings you here at this hour?"

"I could ask the same of you," she said. There was something off about his cousin. Her usual expensive robes had been replaced with a thrown-on set of plum robes that were ripped at one sleeve, and her hair was tied haphazardly on top of her head.

"I could not sleep," he said smoothly, "and I was asking Kreacher to perhaps pour me a small nightcap. Could I persuade you to join me?"

"Yes," said Lyra. "Certainly, I mean."

"There is something the matter," said Regulus. "Please, do tell me. I will be sure to help you in whatever way I can. You are my dear cousin, after all."

"Don't go alone, tonight," she said.

"Lyra," he said. "You will tell me what you know."

"That will take rather a long time," she said, with the smallest of smiles. She had a look of sadness. But she could not know what he intended. How could she? It had been the closest-kept of secrets.

He lead her into the kitchen, and Kreacher set them both up with a drink before Regulus ordered the elf away and not to listen in. His left hand remained in his pocket on the chain of the locket as his right hand curled around the glass of the Firewhisky Kreacher had served to them. If Lyra thought that unusual behaviour, she did not say so. He could calm Lyra, it would not be about this, and hopefully would still have a chance to get away before the dawn.

"Speak, cousin," he said. "I would hear why you are here."

"Well," she said. "I want your oath, Regulus, before I talk."

"Why?" he asked.

"You'll see," she said. "Your oath, Regulus. Would I ask if it was not important?"

"You have never asked anything of me that I was not willing to grant. I am wary to swear an oath unless I know more."

"I can't," she said. "Please, Regulus. I might be able to save your life. You will die if you do what you are planning to do."

"How do you know? What do you know?"

"Regulus. Trust me."

He took in her disheveled look, her pleading eyes, and the desperation that came from her, and he nodded. "Okay."

"Take my hand," she said. He did. "Say the words, you know the oath."

"On my magic," he intoned, "I promise to hold your secret for the time I am bound by this oath."

"One more thing," said Lyra. "I don't want to discuss this here."

"That is acceptable." She held all of the cards, and he supposed that he should trust her. He had trusted her previously. "If I am to be assured it is safe."

She held out her hand, for an oath in response.

"On my magic," she said, her hand clasped in his, her voice steady. "I promise to keep you safe. I promise to tell you the truth, for the time that I am bound by this oath."

He nodded, and drank down the last of his drink.

"Follow me," she said. Lyra stood up from the table, taking the last of her Firewhisky down in a single gulp. Regulus mirrored her action, then followed as she stepped out of the kitchen door, quietly out into the hallway, and out of the front door. Once they were in the square outside the house, she took his arm, and they Apparated away.

Regulus had never seen their current location before, he was certain of it, a dark alleyway sandwiched in between two terraces of small houses. She lead him in through a gate in the fence, and down a short garden, then into one of the houses through the back door. They stood in a kitchen, a very much Muggle kitchen, and she lead him onwards into a small Muggle sitting room with a television set and a full complement of crochet blankets thrown over the back of the sofa and the armchair. She indicated that he should sit, and he took the armchair as she claimed the sofa for her own.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Where would you like me to start?"

"With what you thought I should be prevented from doing."

"Destroying the Horcrux?"

"Lyra," he said, leaning forwards with urgency. "How is it you know of the Horcrux?"

She was his cousin, and she could not be messing with these things. Did she not know the dangers of the Dark Lord? Had she not heeded his warnings of Severus Snape and the other Death Eaters he had unwittingly introduced her to? She should not know.

"How do you know about it?" she countered. "I've always wanted to know that."

"I think," he said, "that I would prefer to be the one asking the questions at the present time."

"I'd better start at the beginning," she said, nodding. "Well, there's no easy way to say this. I'm not actually your cousin. I'm just a very convincing fake. My name is Hermione Granger, and I will be born in, well, a few weeks. September 1979. I'm a time-traveller. I've come… that's not the right way to express that. In my time, my best friend travelled to the place you were going to tonight to destroy a Horcrux. He found it had already gone, and in its place was a perfectly normal locket bearing a note from RAB. Which is Regulus Arcturus Black, of course. You. You know your own name, that was pointless."

She paused, fiddling frantically with a locket she wore around her neck.

"It said you would be dead by the time the replacement was found, and that you hoped to destroy the Horcrux first. That you wanted to be a part of taking down Voldemort."

Regulus felt the chain in his pocket. He'd written the note in his study, that very evening. It was indeed signed with his initials. It indeed predicted that he would be dead by the time his act was discovered.

A time traveller. It was possible, certainly. The Department of Mysteries at the Ministry was capable of it. But here, now, to talk to him? Unlikely. He had no illusion he was important enough for that. But he would hear her out.

She continued. "We found the Horcrux, in the end, and destroyed it. Kreacher, for all his best efforts, didn't manage it. He did you proud, though, Regulus. A lot of other things happened, and Voldemort was finally destroyed in May of 1998."

"Almost twenty years from now," said Regulus.

"That was your aim, wasn't it?" she asked.

"Yes. It is a hope, more than it is an aim. One man alone could not achieve it, could not hope to. I hope to do my part."

"That's all anyone can hope for," said Lyra, who wasn't really Lyra. "But why?"

"I no longer believe that a man who spills so much pure blood could ever be what I wished for him to be. He has ordered the death of my brother. He ordered the death of Francis."

"Why Francis?"

"Why have you decided to impersonate my cousin?" He did not wish to answer that, and she was the imposter and the time traveller. The answers were rather on her to provide.

"We created your cousin, rather than impersonated her. As far as I know, there is no Lyra Black. She's a fakery."

"A good fakery, as you say. You have some impressive knowledge of the Black family tree, for a non-family member. Are you a member of our family in the future?"

"I'm a Muggleborn," she said. "So no."

"So how?" he asked. This was almost like to be a joke, the way she sat here and imparted this information as if it was the reality when it could not be. He had heard the far-fetched stories before, of time travellers and of impersonations. And a Mudblood? She could not be.

"No," he said. "Confirm to me who you are, before you answer me. Who did I tell you to refuse any proposal from, the second evening we met?"

"Severus Snape," she replied, as quickly as she ever did. "He has a Muggle father."

"He does. Kindly continue."

"You stole the Horcrux, and we found it, we destroyed Voldemort. Life was peaceful. But a lot of good witches and wizards, and many innocent Muggles, lost their lives." She sighed, he was certain that he saw her wipe a tear away from her face. "But nobody wanted to come back here. I don't think. There was too much risk of it going wrong. Time turners didn't exist."

"And yet here you supposedly are."

"It was an accident. We ended up in 1978, and so did, well, that's for later. And we almost didn't get involved, Regulus. I don't know how I could have thought that, back then, that it was better to leave things as they were. But my mind was changed, and we want to make things better. We've been working on that since December. We've saved several people, we've almost made things worse, but we need you to end Voldemort."

"Why?" He was hardly important. He had, apparently, failed to ensure the destruction of the Horcrux. Or would fail. It was becoming complex.

"I didn't go with… my friend to the cave the night he found your fake Horcrux," she said. "None of us did. We don't know where to find it. You're the only one who knows, besides Voldemort himself. Without you, we cannot kill him, Regulus."

"And you wish for my help."

"I do."

"Why did you not speak this truth of yours when you met me, in February?"

"I didn't trust you. In February, could you honestly say you would have agreed to destroy a segment of Voldemort's soul?"

Examining his motivations, Regulus knew that he would not have. He was in the thrall of the Dark Lord then. He had desired only to please the man he had sworn service to, and had been preparing to kill for him. He had tortured for him, he would do so again. He had been a Death Eater, through and through.

"I would not."

"That's why," she said.

"Lyra," he said. "Why now?"

"Hermione," she said firmly. "You might as well, here, at least. We, I wanted to save you. We could have let you die, and waited until Kreacher brought back the locket. But we thought your life was worth more than dying for a Horcrux."

"Perhaps it is not," he said. "You do not know what I have done. I need to atone for what I have caused to have happened."

"And it's far better to do that alive than dead."

"My family do not need a murderer."

"No," she said. "They need a father, and a husband, and, fucking hell, perhaps even your parents deserve a son. Though I'm not going to be held to that, with what I know of them."

"What do you know?"

"What your brother has told me. And your cousin Andromeda."

"You know I have no brother, Lyra." It was not true. He had referred to Sirius as his brother within this very conversation, somehow, and yet he still felt as though he ought to deny it.

"Hermione."

"Hermione, then. I have no brother, and I would question why you have been contacting Sirius."

"It's complicated," she said. "Look. I think we need a drink."

"I would agree with that statement," said Regulus. Hermione, or Lyra, or whoever she was in reality, disappeared off into the kitchen and Regulus was left sitting in the front room by himself. He had never been in a house that was this small before for a social visit, and found himself wondering how a family fitted themselves in.

It was not the time for that.

He was, if he was honest, tempted to leave. He knew where he was intending to go tonight, and time was running short. He was no brave, courageous Sirius, and if he did not do it now there was a significant chance he would lose his nerve. And who was this woman, if she was not his cousin? Could he trust a word of what she had to say?

"Drink," she said. "It's gin. Fucked if I know why, S- someone else who lives here likes it. Drinks it in memory of a lost friend, that and fucking port. Nobody who lives here has any taste in alcohol. I didn't even drink, you know, before I came here. Or swear. Now I consume and I swear like a fucking sailor."

"Thank you," said Regulus, unclear of what to make of that statement. "Who else lives here? I would not want such a sensitive conversation to be interrupted or compromised."

"The house has excellent security measures," said Hermione. "He's put everything on it, turns out he's rather good at these sorts of things. The others that live here are in a similar situation to me. They're from the future. Luna, Ginny, and… well, Regulus, you're going to have to promise me something now."

"What is that? I would do anything for my cousin, Lyra, but you are not her it seems." He ignored her references to the he. Who she was living with seemed both vital and highly unimportant, all at once.

Regulus was loathe to make promises to some girl he did not know, especially if they were willing to lie to him for months. He did not like this. She was potentially of use to him still, and he clearly was of use to her, but that was not how he needed this to work. He was working alone, for the safety of everyone around him.

"Just, promise me that you won't leave when I say what I'm going to."

"I will hear you out. I cannot make promises for my actions after that point."

"The fourth person who travelled back with us was Sirius."

"My brother?"

"Yes."

There were no words.

"And he knows what you have been doing?" Regulus pressed.

"It was mostly his idea, if I'm honest." She had finished her glass of gin, and was pouring further measures for both of them. "Sirius loves you, Regulus. I don't think he'll ever come out and say it, but he does. Since we landed here… well, I didn't want to meddle with anything to begin with, but he always wanted to save you."

"Our parents did not promote displays of affection." Regulus did not know if he could say aloud that he loved his brother. "He knows what I did?"

"That's the thing," said Hermione. "He didn't. Not the first time he tried to save you. We were there, outside the Lestrange place the night you took the Dark Mark, and Sirius was trying to get you away from there. I didn't tell him about your actions with the Horcrux until much later. All that your family knew after was that you tried to get out. They didn't know your bravery, your sacrifice."

"Sirius has always been the brave one."

"There's room for two brave siblings," said Hermione. "You should see Ginny's family."

"I do not want anyone to misunderstand my motives," said Regulus. "This is as much to save my own skin as anything else."

"Sirius acts selfishly more than half the time," said Hermione. "Up to seventy percent, at least."

"Sirius is my brother," said Regulus.

Hermione smiled at him, as if she understood exactly the cost of that statement. It had been years, long years, since he had allowed himself to say that phrase out loud. Why now? He did not know.

"And you're his brother," said Hermione. "I think I've missed bits of my explanation, though. There's things I need to say."

"Please do go on," said Regulus. "And after that, if I may ask a favour?"

"Of course."

"I would like to meet with my brother. And you will swear me an oath, the Unbreakable Vow, that this is in fact the truth and not a lie concocted to ensure my untimely death or captivity."

"Yes," said Hermione. "Both of them, of course. I'm not lying. Sometimes I wish I was." She drained her glass again. "You should know, though, this Sirius has come from 1996. He's older. He's been through an awful lot. He's… well, things aren't exactly going as we had planned. He's struggling, Regulus."

"We all have our struggles."

Her eyes misted over, as if she was trying not to cry. Regulus could understand that.

"You said the war was ended in May of 1998."

"I did. It's complicated, Regulus. Sirius fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries in June 1996. He didn't die, it turns out, though we all though he did. It's coincidence, a technicality, a whole bunch of messiness and tangled strings that mean we've ended up here at the same time he did. Me, Ginny, and Luna, we last lived in 2002."

"That is a complicated set of affairs," said Regulus, "although the state my life has become is so far from what I had intended that I can believe that others could find themselves suffering the same fate."

"Indeed," said Hermione. And she talked Regulus through the rest of their recent lives, a story which six months before Regulus would have struggled to believe to be true. They had been manipulating the past as they knew it, at personal cost, and fighting to preserve Regulus as well as they could.

"Why me?" he asked, when she had finished.

"Because," she said. "You're Sirius' brother, in the main. And, the Horcrux? You are the only person that knows where it is."

"That cannot be true."

"It is. We need you, because we can't kill Voldemort early without your knowledge of this Horcrux."

"And you intend for me to die?"

"No. I think we can save you. We're prepared, see. You don't know what's ahead of you, other than what Kreacher has told you. We know exactly how to help you."

"How?" Regulus did not believe her, not on this. He would suspend disbelief

"We know what you'd be facing. My friend went to the cave, in my future, and we know what's in there and we know what to do. We just don't know how to get there."

"And Kreacher does."

"Yes."

"I will require your assurance that my house elf will be safe. He has suffered enough in the pursuit of this."

"Okay. We can do that. I, well, I have a thing about house elves."

Whatever she meant by that was a tale for later times, of that Regulus was more than certain.

"Not tonight," he said. "I wish to sleep on what you have said. I am sure that I can keep my pretence of loyalty to the Dark Lord for at least a further day, if not two or three. Before we travel, I will meet my brother, and I will meet your other companions. And I will be satisfied that you are indeed not going to harm my elf, my wife or my unborn child."

It was the strangest state of affairs that Regulus had ever seen, and he was sat here, and he was unable to understand why he thought that even a section of this could have been the truth. Perhaps it was a dream. He may wake, having found all of this to have been a terrible nightmare, and the world was the way he had always assumed it to be.

"That's fine," she said. "I expected that you would not believe this. I don't think I would have."

"I do not know if I do, entirely."

"Do you want to meet someone, now? Luna will come. If you still want me to swear a vow, Luna will be our bonder."

Regulus did not think the absurdity of this could be increased by adding a further person, even if they were said to have travelled in time by twenty-five years.

"That would be acceptable."

She, the cousin that was not, cast some spell out of the window, and within seconds there was the twist of a key in a lock, and a blonde girl stepped into the opening doorway. Her long, blonde hair fell down her back in a cascade, dressed plainly except for the fact that the necklace she wore was almost certainly made of flowers. The petals opened and closed as she came into the room, closing the door behind her and taking a seat with Regulus and the Hermione girl.

"Hello, Regulus, I did wonder when I would be meeting you. I have heard rather a lot of you."

"I have never heard of you, if I am honest, and I do not know what the social etiquette is in a situation such as this. But, for what weight my name still carries, I am Regulus Black."

"Luna Lovegood. It is so nice to be meeting you at last. I expect the etiquette can be whatever you want it to be. It is not like this is normal, is it?"

Regulus supposed that was correct.

"You have come from the same place as Hermione?"

"In broad terms, yes. I too come from a future that you did not originally live to see. You are more handsome than I expected you to be."

"I am married."

"And I am interested in women, which is much more of a problem than a simple marriage, I am sure. Nevertheless, we are here to discuss a conundrum, are we not?"

Regulus did not understand this girl. But, then, he did not understand much at the present time. It would likely be a dream. He would wake tomorrow still condemned to a death of his own making.

"We are."

"Well, I am pleased to see that you are here. I've never met you, see. And you're sort of famous around here. Sirius loves you more than anyone else in this world, with the possible exception of Hermione."

"You are married?"

"I can see that you did not mention this part, Hermione." Luna had a smile that seemed much more than just a smile. "They are not married, Regulus."

"But you live here, in this house, as a couple?"

"Where we come from, that's acceptable," Lyra said. "I don't think Sirius would care, anyway, even if it wasn't."

Mother would be disapproving. Not of the cousin connection, even though she was not entirely that to either of them, but of the situation. The fact that her darling girl, the one that would do the Black women proud after Bella and Andromeda had so failed her, and Cissy's husband was dead, was living with her blood-traitor son and was unmarried. Mother was close enough to evoking the blood connection to ensure that she did accept a betrothal and live properly.

The blood. She had passed the test, when they had first met. She was a Black, somehow.

But the Luna girl was correct that Sirius would not have cared, even if it was not supposedly acceptable where it was they were from. Or perhaps it was when. Even though it was not exactly the point right now.

"If you are a Mudblood, how did you pass my grandfather's blood test?"

"Your brother. He and Luna here performed a ritual. Also, I prefer Muggleborn."

"Oh."

There was much to take in this evening. He thought that he would have to ask for some kind of proof. It would be remiss, he thought, to take everything that Hermione or Lyra said at face value. He was a Black, despite everything that he would do or would plan to do, and a Black was certain before they acted. He had been certain, and now he was not, and he would do well to act.

"I will wish to see memories that confirm this," he said, in his best Black voice. "My grandfather, Arcturus Black, owns a Pensive. It can easily be arranged for that to be fetched."

"Ask Kreacher," said Hermione. "I'd rather you didn't leave here, not until we've got all of this straight. And you're happy." She gave him a look, one of sadness and everything that came with that. "You're what's important, tonight."

"Yes," he said. "So as I do not disappear and walk myself to an untimely death in a trap laid by my own Dark Lord." He paused. "Not that he is my Dark Lord any longer."

He supposed he had not said that out loud before.

"Well done, Regulus," said Hermione, quietly. "Sirius is going to be so proud."

"This is not for him," Regulus said, but it was, if he was entirely honest with himself. It was becoming an act for so many people that he was becoming close to losing track. "Kreacher," he called, and the house elf appeared.

"Kreacher is ready, Master Regulus, if it is time."

"It is not," said Regulus, and felt a swell of relief. "Fetch Grandfather Arcturus' Pensive, and do not allow him to know what it is you are doing."

"Yes, Master Regulus," said Kreacher, bowing low and disappearing with a crack. The elf had a look of relief on his face, too, even though he was well trained enough not to allow it to show to anyone who did not know him well. He would have followed Regulus back to that cave if ordered. He would have done it, even though he did not want to.

Kreacher came back, and Hermione decanted a collecting of silvery memories into it, and Regulus found that, before he was quite ready, it was his turn.

"Do you want me to come with you?" she asked.

He ought to do this alone, but perhaps that was not his right choice.

"Please," he said. They joined hands, and tipped themselves into the Pensive.

He saw a bushy-haired girl with prominent front teeth, and features of Hermione sit on the stool in the Great Hall, and have the Sorting Hat placed on her head. It shouted for Gryffindor, but Regulus watched the surroundings. Dumbledore was older, more worn, as was Professor McGonagall. A man who looked much of Severus Snape stood at the teacher's table, older, lined, wary.

The scene changed, to fragments of the bushy-haired girl as she grew. Her teeth retracted, she attended lessons, but this was not important. A snippet that his brother had escaped Azkaban, a terrifying photograph of a Sirius abandoned to Dementors. Her and his brother on a Hippogriff, of all things. And then she stood on a Quidditch pitch filled with hedgerows, and heard a dark haired boy shout that the Dark Lord had returned, holding a corpse.

"Who is that?" he asked. The boy must be significant, to be the one sent as a warning.

"Harry," she said. "My best friend."

The girl that was Hermione, or Lyra, formed an army, fought in a battle against Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix and others he knew. Others he had fought with and killed with.

"Lucius is dead," he said.

"Not where we come from." She looked once again as if she would cry. "This is the part where your brother dies, as far as we can tell, but I wasn't there to see it."

"I am sorry to hear that he died."

She showed a memorial service for Sirius, a small group of them crowded around in the garden at Grimmauld Place, planting a tree.

"A muggle thing," she said, "to plant a tree for someone that died."

"He would have liked that. My brother liked to rebel."

And Regulus was certain that he would.

He watched as she went back to school, and the flashes of news of death and the ascension of the Dark Lord once more. Dumbledore's death, or the aftermath of it.

"I was fighting your cousin," she said. "I wasn't there when he died."

The memories became harder to view. They were more fragmented, tinged with emotion, as if they were difficult to recall. She broke into the Ministry of Magic to steal back the locket he had tried so hard to retrieve. A ginger-haired boy ran away, a boy she loved, perhaps. He came back, with the dark-haired Harry and a shattered locket free of corrupting soul.

They broke into Gringotts. Flew out on a dragon with a cup, Regulus and Hermione somehow sailing through the air behind them to follow the dragon. He followed her from there into the Chamber of Secrets, smashing the cup with a basilisk fang, who would have known, and then into a pitched battle in the grounds of Hogwarts itself. Regulus felt himself duck curses as they flew past him, despite it being a memory he was within.

"And you survived this?"

"Many didn't."

Severus died. Bellatrix, too, killed. And then the Dark Lord and the boy, fighting, shouting at one another, until the Dark Lord lay on the floor, mortal and so firmly dead.

It was as if he was human, Regulus thought.

"Do you see?" she asked.

There were more memories, a tale of reconstruction of the wizarding world from this point on. They watched memorial services, the construction of a statue on the grounds of Hogwarts, and her walking into a job at the Ministry of Magic. A wedding. An engagement. The birth of a baby girl, and watching a toddler learn to fly a broomstick.

"Does that help?" she asked.

"Memories can be falsified," he said. "My mother taught me how."

"And I imagine she taught you how to tell if they had been. Do you think they are?"

Truthfully, he did not.

"No."

There were some ways in which he wished that they were. He had sacrificed his life, and little had seemed to change. There had been war after, as there was war before. None of the things he had decided that he should fight for had been protected, just as none of them were at the present moment.

But they were not falsified. They were, at least as far as her perception of the events went, entirely truthful.

"Let's go back."

"Yes."

Back, he thought. Back to a time where this was not something he was required to deal with.

It was his choices that had led him to this. But then one was entitled to regret one's own choices, were they not?

Luna sat waiting for them, carefully peeling the skin from a small orange.

"Clementine?" she asked, as if it were an ordinary day.

"No," said Hermione. "Gin?"

"Certainly."

The liquid was horrific, he thought. It had nothing on a sensible, wizarding drink. Firewhisky burned, but this seemed to strip the feeling from his throat and his stomach. He rather enjoyed the sensation.

"Do you want to meet him?"

Regulus did not need to ask who.

"I think so."

"Take your time."

"We do not, necessarily, have the luxury of time. The Dark Lord may call me at a moment's notice. He believes that I am loyal. The longer I deceive him, the higher the likelihood of me meeting an end that is not of my choosing, and an end that does not remove a Horcrux from him."

"He does have a point, there," said Luna. She had finished her orange, and was lining up the peel along the arm of the sofa she sat on.

"I wish to meet him."

Regulus did not want to believe all of this, and yet, somehow, he did. Perhaps tomorrow he would realise that there was no conceivable reason any of this could be the truth. That it was the fever dream of a desperate man. He was honest enough about himself to understand that he was, indeed, desperate. He wished for the impossible, to remove the Horcrux from the Dark Lord and to survive to tell the tale.

"In your memories," he said, a realisation coming to him, "there were multiple items you destroyed. There was a cup, too."

"A cup, a diadem, a locket, a ring, a diary, a snake." She looked down at the floor. "We repeated those words enough times."

"I would not have made him mortal once more."

"No. It doesn't diminish what you did, but no."

"What I tried to do." He paced. It was becoming a frequent habit, one he must make effort to stop. "I wish to meet with my brother from the future. Perhaps then this will be of more sense than it is at the present time."

Luna finished with her orange peel. "If it makes sense, it is probably rather boring. Shall I fetch him?"

"The Vow, first." It was important. A Black protected themselves and their family, at all times.

"Of course."

Luna drew her wand, and he and Hermione knelt down onto the Muggle carpet, surrounded by the Muggle things, and this, Regulus thought, of all of it, was the part that he would not have been able to dream up.

"Do you," he asked, "promise to tell me the entire truth of the matter, and not to withhold information unless it would put my family in the line of danger?"

Her eyebrows furrowed, but she nodded.

"Yes."

"Do you promise to protect my family, including my unborn child, and my house-elf in all endeavours, even if I perish?"

"Of course, yes."

He waited for her. Three elements to seal the Vow, and she should make one.

"Do you," she asked, "promise to renounce the Dark Lord, and to work with us to ensure his demise?"

He knew it would be something of the sort, he supposed.

"I do."

Luna tapped their hands twice with her wand, and the swirling tendrils of the magic wrapped them, and it was done.

"That is what you intend, then?" he asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Kill Voldemort," she said.

"It is as well that I share your aim."

Indeed it was. This was almost so fortuitous, so unlikely, that it was like to be a dream.He was desperate enough to believe it. To hope above all else that this rescue was to save him.


	52. Chapter 52: Brothers

**Chapter Fifty Two: Brothers**

 _Sirius_

 _August 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

He was going to meet his brother.

Sirius had waited out of the way with Ginny and Luna. They'd left the house when Hermione dashed off after the letter from Regulus' wife arrived, but they had nowhere to go.

It stretched out, it really did. He looked at his watch, and she'd only been gone twenty minutes, but it felt like days. Maybe it really had been days, and there'd been another time turner accident that had transported them back to this point. Maybe he was cursed. Doomed to relive the same tense moments of waiting while his brain replayed scenarios in which both Hermione and Regulus somehow died in the cave filled with Inferi.

He'd had a nightmare of that, but he hadn't wanted to tell anyone. It'd either have worried them and they'd fuss, or they wouldn't have cared, and he didn't want either of those.

Logically, he knew they weren't even going to the cave tonight. Hermione had promised.

"I can't do this," he said.

"Sit down," Ginny snapped. "You can't go ruining this with selfishness."

"It isn't…" he started, but Luna shushed them both.

"Silencing Charms," she said, a gentle, entirely non-threatening wave of her wand that he was sure was supposed to be a threat. "We aren't going to argue, not tonight. There is enough going on, isn't there?" She smiled, a slightly smug one. "And, besides, the Nargles struggle with the bad vibrations."

Sirius had to agree. Not about the Nargles. The rest of it. He sat down, on a bench in the park they were lurking in, and then promptly got back up again.

"The girl I love is in danger," he said, feebly.

"No more than we all are, really," said Luna, cheerfully. "We have all done far stupider things. Like going to the Ministry of Magic that night when you sort of but did not die. We didn't have enough of a plan, that night, in hindsight."

"Hindsight," said Sirius. Wasn't it a wonderful thing?

Luna took them on a walk to the seafront, somewhere Sirius usually found to be peaceful. Today he paced up and down, tried and failed to balance on a wooden groyne, and fell into the sea.

"Hermione's sent for me," said Luna, as Sirius pulled himself from the water. "I'd better be going now."

She wandered off back into the town, all relaxed and calm, because this wasn't her fucking family on the line.

"How would you react," said Ginny, once Luna had gone, "if someone came claiming they were from the future and trying to save your life?"

"Probably Stun them, at least. Assume they were a Death Eater and it was a trap."

"Yeah. I think I would, too."

"I always assumed things were traps. Usually I was right."

"And I bet it was those times you didn't even want to be right."

"Occasionally I enjoyed saying 'I told you so' to some idiot like James who wanted to see the best in people. But only if it hadn't all gone to shit."

He checked for Muggles before pulling out his wand to cast drying charms over himself. It was late at night, so there was nobody around.

"Even if anyone saw," said Ginny, from her seat on the sand, "they're not going to think anything of some weirdo who just fell in the sea waving a stick at himself. They'll just think you're pissed."

Sirius considered being rude in response, but when did that help? Ginny hadn't been nice to anyone, really, since she'd fallen out with Remus the night before. Sirius thought about telling her to fuck off, too, but that also wouldn't help. So he said nothing.

See, he knew social skills.

Whatever his mother had said about him.

He hadn't realised he'd said anything out loud until Ginny rolled her eyes and replied to him. He hoped he hadn't said too much.

"Whatever your mother said about whatever you're on about, it doesn't matter," she sighed. She tried to tuck her hair behind her ear, but Philomena's style didn't lend itself easily to that. She settled for straightening her Holyhead Harpies jumper. "This isn't about Walburga sodding Black. It's about you and Regulus. She just happens to be the twat who birthed you."

Sirius laughed.

"Unfortunate choice of swear, admittedly," said Ginny. She picked back up the Daily Prophet she'd been trying to read. "Do you mind if I read this?"

"No," Sirius replied. "It's all death anyway."

"And sports," said Ginny, rifling through to the sports section and settling there.

"Do you think we'll regret this?" he asked. "Helping Regulus?"

"Sirius," said Ginny, putting the paper back down. "It's all you've wanted to do since we got here."

"Yes," he continued, "but I'm not known for being good at making decisions."

He thought of that night in October 1981, when instead of staying for Harry he'd run, run after Peter, run for revenge instead of staying to look after his godson. It was one of a litany, really, of bad decisions and chasing revenge rather than fixing things.

"Roll with it," Ginny advised, picking the paper back up.

His watch hadn't moved very far. Maybe Regulus had killed them both. He was capable of killing.

Sirius turned into a dog. He'd never been known to be good at dealing with conflict, either.

It was perhaps an hour after Luna had left that another Patronus arrived, this time summoning Sirius back to the house. His heart leapt, his tail wagged, as he tried to push down those feelings. It might not go well. Regulus hadn't spent a year imagining how this could go, a year and a lifetime desperate for this.

He turned back into a human, checking himself for sand or errant seaweed.

"You sure you're going to be alright, alone?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine. It's not like I can come, anyway, I killed his friend, remember?"

It was true enough.

Sirius paused before he entered the house. He wanted this more than anything, well, almost, had wanted it since he'd been in the past. But he'd probably fuck it up. Maybe he shouldn't.

His hand sat on the doorknob, waiting. Waiting for something, and he didn't know what.

He had to get on with it.

"Sirius?" Regulus asked, his brother asked, his brother who was safe and whole and well and sitting on the chair Ginny liked. "Sirius?" His tone was full of wonder and curiosity and not small amount of trepidation. He was dressed finely, as if he had wanted to go to his grave looking his best.

"Regulus."

"What is it that we say to one another, now?"

Sirius wanted to laugh. If ever there was a situation that Walburga Black's lessons on social nicety would fail you, it was this one.

"Sorry," said Sirius, starting at the beginning. "Sorry for being a twat when you were sorted into Slytherin."

"I wished to be with you," said Regulus. "But I wished for you to be where you would not be happy, rather than for happiness for the both of us. And I was not perfect in my behaviours."

"Both twats, then," said Sirius. They stared at each other. Sirius had rehearsed things to say, but none of them seemed right. Not now.

"Shall we leave them to it?" Luna asked. Hermione nodded.

"We'll be upstairs," said Hermione.

They went down to the pier, the brothers, because it was a place that Sirius liked, and he felt like they needed the fresh air. They bought tea in little paper cups from the cafe on the corner, and they sat on a bench about halfway down. In silence, for quite a long time. The two of them made a strange pair, the wild haired man in a knitted jumper and jeans, the neat one in the long robes.

"Do you remember," asked Regulus, "the day you persuaded Kreacher to buy us those Muggle trousers? Jeans, I believe that you called them."

Sirius had been eight, and Regulus seven. They'd seen a man wearing them in Diagon Alley, and they'd been immediately taken with the strange trousers. It had taken two hours to persuade Kreacher to purchase them. The two boys had managed to hold onto them for almost a month before their mother had found out.

"I remember the day mother dearest found out we had them."

Sirius still had the scar on his leg from that.

"Sorry," said Regulus. "I am sorry that I never did more for my brother."

Sirius had nothing to say for a while.

"I'm sorry I was an arse to you," he said, finally. "The Slytherin thing, like I said, and the rest of it. I used to wish I could be a bit more like you. Could blend in, you know. Be what I was supposed to be, not who I was."

"I never wanted to be like you," said Regulus. Sirius bristled at that. But it was the truth. And Regulus could have lied there, but he didn't, and that had to count for something. "I just wanted you to be safe," his brother continued. "I didn't want you to run off with the, the blood traitors, because it would end with you getting hurt. I never wanted to be the heir."

"Makes two of us."

"I was angry with you, for a while," said Regulus. "You had made my life rather difficult."

"I was angry with you," said Sirius. "I dunno. I think I thought that you could have joined me in Gryffindor and we would have been brothers and we could have defied them together. But you wouldn't."

"I am a Slytherin. I remain so to this day."

"Hermione, Lyra to you, reckons she knows some nice Slytherins. And there's always Andromeda. You're not all twats."

"I suppose," said Regulus, "that neither are all Gryffindors."

"Shall we call it quits on the brotherly bonding for now?" asked Sirius. "We've got somewhere positive today, I think, and I wouldn't want one of us to now offend the other and undo all of it."

"No," said Regulus. "I do not wish that, either."

Sirius bit back the urge to say he talked like a posh git. Sirius had talked like a posh git once. He'd copied Remus' accent for a while, before he'd realise it was Welsh, and then he'd copied Peter's, which was much more average.

"I suppose we'd better get the Horcrux tomorrow night, instead," he said. As much as anything else, Sirius could smell the gin on his breath. Jo's gin. He'd liberated a few bottles from her house after she'd died, and told himself she wouldn't mind. But charging into a Dark Lord's trap when drunk - that was a recipe for death.

Regulus nodded, but it took a second.

"If you haven't changed your mind?" The question hung there, the seconds Regulus took to answer it seeming like hours.

"I have not." His brother looked more serious than Sirius had ever seen him before, his eyes made of steel. "You will be aware that my wife, Adeline, is pregnant. But," and he looked at Sirius, firmly, "a few nights ago, my former boyfriend was attacked. By Death Eaters, my supposed friends. He almost died, because he refused to join our cause."

Sirius decided to stay silent. His brother, a boyfriend? The kid had been made to follow the family line, marry and produce children. He was fucking married. That baby. Was he gay? Did it matter?

No, Sirius decided. It didn't.

"Shit."

"If I had ever uttered a word of that ilk in my life, it is perhaps what I would have said."

"Try it." Sirius had never had much success with giving his brother advice before, but he'd never been in a situation like this before, either.

"It is not something that would come easily to me."

"Do you know how idiotic I sounded when I learnt to swear? James, Remus and Peter took the piss out of me relentlessly for months. That accent I used to have, it was horrific."

"The accent I still possess."

Sirius thought about that. He'd decided not to tell Regulus he talked like a twat, but he seemed to have done it anyway.

"Yeah, you do. You could lose it, if you wanted. Just, you know, contract your words occasionally. Throw in some filler words. Swear."

"I do not think that my accent is what drove us apart. Or what will resolve our current situation."

"No, it isn't, but swearing feels fucking good when it's all gone tits over the Hippogriff."

Regulus drank the last of his tea, and despite everything smiled at the ridiculous metaphor.

"Shit."

"Regulus, oh my fucking days, Merlin's shitting beard, you swore!"

"I did not like the sound of it, much, but it did make me feel as though I have become somehow more reckless."

"Reg, you're leaving the Death Eaters. It doesn't get much more reckless."

"Do you think I am doing the right thing?"

Regulus had not asked Sirius that since he was ten, and Sirius had been eleven.

"I've never wanted you to do something more."

"I do not know if that makes me feel better about what it is I am attempting to do."

Sirius bit back the urge to say something with the aim to hurt his brother. It hadn't been tactful, no, but he supposed someone couldn't change a lifetime's habit overnight. And, Sirius admitted it to himself, he had occasionally been a terrible role model. So he laughed.

"Hermione feels like that, sometimes. That if I agree, it means it isn't a very good idea."

"Either she is significantly different from the Lyra I know, or you have significantly matured, or I do not know how she puts up with you."

"A bit of all three."

"I suppose we all have to change somehow, do we not?

"You have a baby on the way." Regulus was to provide a further heir, further allowing the Blacks to abandon Sirius.

"Yes. I hope it is to be a boy. Else they will not have anyone left to be a Black."

"You're not going to die." Sirius attempted reassurance, while ultimately not caring if the Blacks ceased to exist. No, that was a lie. He cared if Regulus ceased to exist. But not the name. The name could go and fuck itself.

"We cannot be sure of that. Ly - Hermione - says I died in the time that she comes from. That we both do." Regulus was no longer able to make eye contact with his brother, it seemed. "You know only a world where I died in the service of the Dark Lord."

"No," said Sirius. "I knew that you'd tried to get out. I thought you'd got cold feet, I didn't know you were going to try and destroy a bit of his soul."

"You knew?"

"It came out later. Long after the first defeat. I don't know what Hermione's explained to you, but I spent rather a long time stuck in Azkaban. Remus had to do the research. He reckoned you didn't want to keep killing. He dug something up about a Francis. Is that the boyfriend? We assumed he was just a friend. He'd been attacked."

"Yes. I loved him. It is possible that I still do. I have not allowed myself to think of him in that way. I discovered that Death Eaters had attempted to kill him because he would not join our ranks. Their ranks. I am not one, not in heart. I strongly suspect that the Mark is a part of me for life."

Sirius had been taught never to hug. Hugs were for married couples. He threw his arm around his brother, anyway. Fuck propriety.

Regulus stiffened slightly, but accepted the hug. It was possible Regulus was not entirely ready to fuck propriety. Maybe Sirius should just settle for him jacking in the Death Eaters for today, and work on the systematic destruction of his entire belief system later. There was time, now. They'd save him.

"Our father was wrong," said Regulus. "You will amount to something, Sirius."

"Really?"

"Yes."

It was the single nicest thing he could ever remember his family saying.

"I was going to propose to her, tonight," he said, not sure why he was telling Regulus this, of all people. "I bought a ring. I went to a Muggle jewellers, in Bristol. It was where my friend James bought the ring for his wife, he wanted to get her something Muggle, because her parents were, and it's still the only jewellery shop I know of."

"If you wish for it, I could find a ring from our vault," Regulus offered. It was a peace offering, but it wasn't one Sirius wanted to accept.

"No," he said. "I mean, no thanks. I appreciate you offering, but, this is something I have to do myself."

"I understand."

Sirius wasn't sure that he did, but he was trying, and that was a start.

"Besides, Mother dearest might disown you if she caught you handing stuff to me."

"It may be that is my fate, regardless." He looked sad, Sirius realised. He wanted to hug his brother again, but that hadn't gone so well last time, so Sirius left it.

"I don't think she will. Mother loves you best, always has."

"That is not true," said Regulus, and he looked even sadder now. "You had the stronger magic as a child. You were the cleverest at our schoolwork. You were destined for great things."

"Or a colossal fuck up. You're the one who stuck around."

"And look at where that has got me." Regulus shook his head. "May I see it?"

"What?"

"The ring you have chosen."

Sirius had been carrying it round since he'd bought it, so he pulled it out of his jeans pocket, and handed his brother the tiny box.

"It is beautiful," Regulus said.

"Thanks. I wanted to get something perfect. But I went to the only shop I knew and bought this, because I panicked and chose something I liked. I don't even know if she likes purple."

"Amethyst," said Regulus. "The power of healing and inner strength. Some have assigned it the power of protection. Not a traditional stone for a promise ring, but a suitable one."

"You'd know."

"I do. Adeline has an emerald and diamond from the family vault. For love, purity and protection."

"Admirable goals."

"Indeed."

"Shall we go back?" Sirius asked. They'd been here a while. Long enough for Luna and Hermione to start to worry.

"I have a further question, before we do."

"Go on."

"Why do you wish to marry her? You have never shown an interest in marriage before. You have spoken against it. I am aware that you are older, now, but…" Regulus trailed off, looking expectant, and slightly resigned.

"I proposed because of your mother." He checked himself. "Our mother. She's trying to have Hermione, as Lyra, married off. She wants her to pledge to someone by the end of the year, and that isn't fair. But," he continued, as Regulus' face began to look cross, "it isn't just that. I didn't want to marry because I didn't want to do all the crap that comes with it. I didn't want to subject some wife to our fucking family. But that's not a problem. I'm never going back into the fold, I'm disowned and I'm staying that way. I love her. I want to show her that."

He paused. He didn't know if he wanted to say the last part, but he decided that he did.

"In case one of us dies. It's going to get dangerous. We've got to destroy Voldemort."

"Yes. It is to be dangerous, this task of ours."

"Ours." Sirius smiled, even though it wasn't that sort of a conversation. "I love her."

"I can see that she loves you, also."

"Really?" Sirius couldn't help but ask that.

"Very much so. Now. We must return to the others." Regulus handed Sirius the ring box back, and he tucked it back into his jeans pocket. He didn't think today was the time, now, not with the inevitable preparation to go to the cave, but he wanted to do this properly. Not some muttered proposal in the heat of things. She deserved better.

"Regulus. Wait."

He did. Sirius took a deep breath.

"Will you stand with me, when we get married?"

Regulus smiled.

"It would be an honour."

 _Remus_

 _August 1979, the Crossing, Lincolnshire_

They were due to go back to the pub in Manchester, that night, to retrieve Regulus Black if he still wished to defect from the Death Eaters. Sirius had wanted to go alone, but Moody had vetoed that suggestion. Moody had wanted Philomena, but Remus had claimed she was busy, so it was the four Marauders. He'd said that was better for Sirius, too, who was nervous and becoming more and more difficult with those nerves, but in reality, he just couldn't see her.

What Remus wanted was someone to talk to about his girlfriend, but there was nobody. Sirius was closeted away with James, discussing tactics for tonight in theory, but in reality James was attempting to calm Sirius down. He was best at that, always had been. Peter was running errands for Dorcas and some mystery project of hers. Lily was off somewhere with Caradoc, Benji and Hestia, doing reconnaissance on an old factory in Barrow-in-Furness.

He didn't really want to bother them. It was silly. What were the chances his girlfriend truly was a spy? Hadn't he already had enough bad luck? He'd checked her background. Sirius never checked any of the girls he slept with.

Besides, Moody was paranoid. There weren't even rumours of a spy.

He didn't need to worry about this.

He Apparated to the pub alone. Sirius and James arrived as he was ordering himself a drink, James slapping down the Galleons on the bar for the three of them.

"I can pay for myself," Remus said, but it was pointless. James liked to pay, he didn't take no for an answer when handing out charity, and, honestly, if Remus didn't want to nurse the same pint of mead all night, he couldn't pay for himself.

He hadn't had a job since he'd been fired from the Ministry for fighting Rowle. Word spreads. He'd fought someone at work, a superior, and rumour was he also fought for the Order, and that made him a difficult proposition to take on. He supposed that was progress. He'd always assumed it was his lycanthropy that would hold him back. It was several things, it turned out.

Phil had been the best thing in his life, aside from his friends. Why was he throwing it all away by not trusting her?

He'd owl her after this, he decided, with an apology.

Peter showed up late, blood stains on the sleeves of his robes.

"It's not mine," he said, at the sight of everyone's eyes going to the blood. "Been helping Dorcas out."

"With what?" James asked.

"Not allowed to say."

It was becoming more difficult to speak freely. Moody had shut down a lot of the communication within the Order, his fear of spies and imposters growing by the day. Even if he said he didn't think there was one. Remus found the secrecy easy, but it did not mean he liked it. Sirius, always able to keep a secret too, disliked it even more. Others had fallen foul of Moody already.

"Learn to keep a secret, or you're out!" he'd shouted at a terse meeting. "Constant vigilance!"

They'd used to shout that at one another as part of a practical joke, but it had stopped. It wasn't funny. They needed the vigilance.

They needed every wand they could get.

Both of them kept a careful watch. The pub had three doors, and danger or Regulus could come from any of them. They were wary. They'd been caught by traps before.

"Do you think he'll come?" asked Sirius.

"I think so. He was desperate, yesterday."

"But he's not brave. He might bottle it."

"He was brave just by asking us. Would you have gone to him?" James fixed Sirius with that glare of his, and Remus knew they'd have had this conversation already.

"I'd never. I'd never be asking to join the Death Eaters, not ever."

"But in his situation?" James persisted.

"I'd never be in it. You know that. There's no scenario I'd ever join that bag of fuckwits."

"Keep your voice down," said Remus. Several nearer drinkers had looked around at Sirius' words, and Remus knew why. Places politics were discussed were dangerous. Nobody wanted to publicly have an opinion. It was dangerous to speak for either side, these days, and it was dangerous not to choose.

"Yeah, shit."

They all sat in silence. Sirius was inscrutable as always, although he was likely thinking of his brother.

"He's not coming," said Sirius, glancing at the clock for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"Wait," said Peter. "Just wait."

At one o'clock in the morning they decided that he was, in fact, not coming.

"What do we do now?" Sirius asked, looking as dejected as Remus had ever seen him. "It doesn't seem like a trap. But he's not here."

"Shhh," said Remus, glancing around. The pub had emptied out considerably, and the other patrons left were so far into their goblets as to appear no threat. But they could be, still, and there was the barman, and it was better to stay quiet.

"What if he's dead?" Sirius asked. "What if we couldn't save him?"

"He's not," said James. "We should go home. Owl him tomorrow. Come back here tomorrow, even. He might just have been held up, some ridiculous formal function of your mother's, probably.

"He's dead," said Sirius. "He has to be. He said he was coming."

Sirius was prone to pessimism. James, the eternal optimist. Remus was a realist, and he suspected Sirius was right.

Peter, where did Peter fit in that? Peter was a pessimist, too, he realised, but tended to pretend he agreed with James.

Regulus had tried to leave, and that wasn't something Voldemort would take lightly. It would have taken little for him to have been caught out, and a miracle to save him if he had. Some time-traveller swooping in to save him, or Remus' mother's God, or the Order. But the Order hadn't done it, because that had been their job, and Remus had always struggled with religion.

"There's nothing we can do," said Remus. "The pub's closing."

The barman glared at them, waiting with a tray of empty bottles, glasses and goblets levitating next to him. He held his hand out.

"Come on," said Peter, dragging Sirius off the stool. "We'll go home."

"Could go to Grimmauld Place," said Sirius, outside in the harsh light of the Muggle streetlamps. It was the wizarding section of Manchester, but it blended seamlessly into the Muggle buildings around it. An owl emporium stood next to a flower shop owned by Muggles, a haphazardly build house held up by magic almost overlapping with a block of Muggle, post-war flats. The inhabitants, wizard and Muggle, ignored late night cracks and flashes and bangs. Gang crime, it was put down to by the Muggle police.

"What would that achieve?" Remus asked. Sirius was secretive about his childhood, always had been, but Remus knew enough to know the likely outcome of him going back there. "She'll curse you back out."

"She might listen," said Sirius. "She loves Regulus." There was only the smallest amount of bitterness there. Remus understood. He didn't have a brother for his parents to love more, but if there had been, he'd have been in the same situation.

No, that was unfair to his mother. His mother loved him. His father would have preferred a better son.

"She might. Or we might make it worse for him."

"Patronus?"

"If he's with a Death Eater, or Voldemort, that'll make it worse."

"I could disguise my voice. Be cryptic."

"Sirius, your dog is about as distinctive as anything." James shook his head.

"You could do it. Or Remus. Or Pete."

Remus sighed. "Don't, Sirius. It won't help."

"I've got to get back to Lily," said James, checking his watch. "Promised her. Can you two get him home alright?"

At home, Sirius paced up and down the living room, still making noises about going to Grimmauld Place. Everyone agreed it was a terrible idea, except Sirius. There was an argument, which Remus barely paid attention to, and then Sirius, always good at conflict, turned into a dog and sat on the sofa glaring at anyone and everyone. Peter began a game of solitaire with a pack of Exploding Snap cards, until Sirius ate one of the cards.

"It'll do nothing for your stomach, Pads," he said. Sirius snapped at him.

Remus sighed, and went to bed.

He was awoken just before dawn, by the feel of it and by the light outside, by Philomena getting into his bed.

"What cha doing?" he asked, groggy.

"Peter let me in," she said. "I wanted to see you."

"Alright," he said, rolling over. "Why?"

"Need to apologise," she said, but Remus thought he was going back to sleep.

He woke again an hour or so later, the sun firmly up, and she was still asleep beside him. He hadn't apologised, only she had.

But he was feeling disloyal, even though he'd already decided she wasn't a spy, and he rolled back the sleeve of her Quidditch jumper. The arm underneath was bare, except for freckles, and he sighed in relief.

He needed breakfast.

Remus was halfway down the stairs when he realised even Voldemort was probably intelligent enough not to mark a spy.

Peter was in the kitchen, frying sausages and eggs.

"You're up early," Remus remarked, going into the cupboards for his own preferred breakfast, and hoping Sirius hadn't eaten it all again.

"Haven't gone to bed," said Peter. "I can't sleep these days."

"Do you think she's a spy?" Remus nudged Peter out of the way slightly, so he could use the other side of the hob for making porridge. Peter looked baffled.

"Who?"

"Phil."

"No. Do you?"

"Dunno."

"Why?" He flipped the bacon, and the smell of it made Remus' stomach turn. He'd never liked the stuff.

"I've never seen where she lives."

"It's probably a shithole or something."

"So's this place." Remus waved a hand at the kitchen, a pile of unwashed cutlery, unanswered letters, books, newspapers and other detritus. A cauldron bubbled softly in the corner, containing a potion Peter had made three weeks ago. Sirius lay on the floor as a dog, his tail flapping against the flagstone floor.

"True enough. Maybe she's got embarrassing housemates, then."

Remus' only answer was to wave another hand at Sirius. Peter chuckled.

"Once again you have a point." He sat at the table with his breakfast, and Remus leant on the cupboard, stirring his porridge with the tip of his wand and trying to cast a cleaning spell on the table with a wooden spoon.

"Helena said something about her house. Her mum lived next to Philomena.. She lives with someone who looks like Sirius."

Peter laughed. "Some people look like Sirius. Don't tell him that. You know what he's like."

Remus was losing track of what was relevant.

"Am I being disloyal to question it?" he asked. "I don't know."

"James would say yes," said Peter. "Sirius would say you should question everyone."

"Yes, but what do you think?" James was overly trusting. Sirius never trusted anyone outside of their core group, and occasionally Dumbledore or Dorcas. Peter was good at people.

"I don't think she is. Why would she be? I mean, she knows a lot, yes, but maybe she's just good at Divination. I did have a go at her, by the way, about keeping secrets from you."

"Why?"

"Why do you always pull that face when someone stands up for you, that's what I want to know."

"What face?"

"You're doing it again," said Peter. "The one where you've got a complex we don't really like you, and you can't see why we'd want you to be happy."

Remus didn't say anything. He tipped his porridge into his bowl, and washed his wand under the tap. It smoked slightly, but it'd be fine.

"You always tell James and Sirius if they take it too far making jokes about me," Peter continued. "So stands to reason I'd do it for you."

"Yeah. Phil told me that I should stand up for myself more." He paused. "I'm not sure she meant against her."

"Do you really think she's a spy?" Peter asked. "Gut instinct."

"No." He didn't think he did.

"There you are. Mischief managed."

"Mischief managed."

She appeared in the doorway then, and Remus hoped she hadn't heard anything. He offered to make her tea and porridge, as a guilt offering. He didn't distrust her, not really.

"Sorry," he said, as Peter left the room in an exaggerated manner, clearly making some kind of point that he and Philomena should talk to one another. "Sorry for accusing you of not trusting me."

"It's fine," she said. "I do trust you. But it's hard to trust anyone in a time like this."

That was it, he thought, perhaps. Hadn't he been thinking the same? About all of the secrecy in the Order? Not being able to talk freely in pubs?

"Do you want to come round later?" she asked. "See my house?"

"Yeah, okay," he said, as his heart leap. She did trust him! He'd been right not to doubt her, in the end, hadn't he?

"This evening," she said. "I'm not sure I'm quite ready for you to meet my weird housemates, yet, but I want to show you that I trust you."

It was a funny thing, Remus thought. Trust.

Moody seemed to think so, too. The Order meeting that afternoon was fraught. He began snapping at anyone who said too much about their work.

"We've got to be able to talk, Alastor," snapped Dorcas, in the end. "I know why you're doing this, but, if we don't have the information someone's going to get themselves killed!"

"People have already died," said Moody.

"Francis," piped up Frank Longbottom. "And Marlene."

"Marlene was killed after a battle," said Dorcas, standing up from her seat at the front of the room. And Francis - he was in his house when he was attacked. It's common knowledge amongst purebloods where they all live, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Frank. "It's why we've moved."

"Indeed. So they couldn't have been prevented by the withholding of information." She threw down the stack of parchment she'd been holding. "I'm going to do that patrol now. If there's anything you're not telling me, Alastor, you've got thirty seconds." She waited. "No? Alright."

The door slammed closed after she'd gone through it, and that seemed to trigger the room into noise again.

"Do you think that means we don't have to do the patrol?" Sirius whispered.

"Shush," said Remus. "That isn't the point."

"Quiet!" roared Moody, obviously incensed by Dorcas. There was no official hierarchy within the Order, aside from Dumbledore being the nominal leader, but Moody and Dorcas took the lead in his frequent absences. They'd always been different, but these days, they were clashing more than ever.

Remus was never more glad to escape that meeting.

"Here we are," said Phil, later, opening the door to an unassuming terraced house in a Muggle town by the sea. It was nicer than Grimsby, more middle-class seaside than the industrial docks town.

"It's nice," he said. He meant it.

"It's alright," she replied. "Drink? We never have any food in."

"How did you end up here?" he asked, following her through to the tiny kitchen. It was clear that somebody here liked to read, judging by the pile of books on the kitchen table. Advanced defensive magic, mostly, and probably Philomena's, ritual magic, and time travel.

"The house used to belong to my friend's grandparents," she replied. "We're just looking after it."

"Oh. That makes sense. It's a Muggle town, isn't it?"

"Yeah." She sat on the worktop as she waited for the kettle to boil. "I like it."

Remus remembered something else. It had been bothering him before, and Peter had told him it wasn't anything, and suddenly, it bothered him again.

"Helena said her mum lived next door."

"Jo?"

"I don't know her name."

"She was called Jo. I didn't really know her. But my housemates were friends with her. Two of them were, I think."

"She said you came out and fought the Death Eaters."

"Yeah. You would, wouldn't you? We all would."

Remus took a deep breath.

"Helena reckoned you lived with a man called Sirius Black."

Philomena dropped the kettle she'd been holding. Remus briefly wondered why she had a Muggle kettle, even though that wasn't the point.

"Sirius? Why would I live with someone called Sirius Black? It isn't a common name. There can't be more than one." She picked up the Muggle kettle, tilting her head to one side. "He does look a bit like Sirius, though, my housemate. Just older. Bit of a coincidence, really."

No, Remus thought, there couldn't. Coincidence. That's what it was.

"What's your housemates name?"

She had her back to him when she answered, refilling the kettle, so he couldn't see her face.

"Kevin," she said, instantly.

Funny, wasn't it, that back in December, when they'd met each other, she'd had a friend who looked a bit like Sirius, but Remus could have sworn his name had been William.


	53. Chapter 53: The Cave

**Chapter Fifty Three: The Cave**

 _Hermione_

 _August 1979, English Channel_

It was the south coast of England, of that Hermione was sure as she stood, shivering, on a rock off the coast of England. The coastline was dramatic in the gathering dusk, the village Tom Riddle had visited as a child just visible on the top of the cliffs. Harry had recalled it as a dark, grim, horrible place, but Hermione could only see its beauty.

Perhaps it was context. Perhaps it was your viewpoint. Maybe just preference. Maybe Harry harboured a secret hatred of the seaside.

Regulus stood beside her, his cloak billowing in the wind coming in off the sea. He was quiet, and had been since they had set out. Kreacher had told them he could take them all at once, but Regulus had insisted that the elf not overexert himself. So she and Regulus had gone first, and Luna and Sirius would follow.

"Are you sure you wish to accompany me?" he asked, looking over at her.

"Yes." She'd never questioned her decision to come, and neither had Sirius, and of course Luna hadn't wanted to be left behind. They would do it together; they were all so conscious that before he had come alone.

Ginny hadn't been impressed that she wasn't allowed to come, but she was due at Hogwarts the following morning. And, anyway, they had decided introducing her was too much at present for Regulus. They'd explained she was working with the Order, gathering information, and that would do, for now. He hadn't asked too many more questions, thankfully.

Sirius, Luna and Kreacher popped into existence.

This was it.

"So this is where I was to die," said Regulus, breaking the silence. "I hope that we can prevent that."

"We will," said Luna. "Nobody's dying tonight."

Hermione wished she could be so sure.

"What do you think of it?" she asked.

"It is beautiful," he said. "But somehow I do not wish to linger here. I believe I would feel that way even if I did not know what lay inside."

"Feels nasty," said Sirius. He pulled out his wand, and began poking at the air with it. "It's artificial. Voldemort, the bastard, has laced spells here. He's made it so that you feel as if you don't want to be here, from right about a mile out. He's clever, I'll give him that."

Hermione didn't feel any of that. Still, the others were closer.

"Do you think he can tell that we are to do this?"

"He never suspected when you did this before," said Hermione. "So we can assume he won't, this time."

"Assumption is dangerous," said Sirius, grimly. "I assumed Peter wasn't a threat."

Hermione laced her fingers into his, and squeezed. It was a few seconds before she got her squeeze in return.

They swam from the rock to the cave entrance, just as Harry had done. They cast drying spells on themselves on the other side, and then they steeled themselves. Or that was what Hermione was doing. Sirius reached out and took her hand.

"It wants blood," she said. "The door needs blood to open."

Sirius and Regulus both stepped forwards at once.

"This is my burden to bear," said Regulus, stiffly.

"You're my little brother," said Sirius.

Luna wandered forwards, neatly cutting into her hand with a muttered charm and smearing the blood onto the rock.

"If we're to manage this, we'll need to work together," she said, lightly, sauntering in through the door.

They were all on edge, as they went further into the cave. This was where the dark and the gloom set in for Hermione. The natural light had vanished, and it was freezing, far colder than it should have been for an August evening. Hermione shivered. Kreacher was shaking, the tiny elf almost paralysed with fear.

"We need to find a boat," she said. "Look for the chains, everyone. Don't touch the water."

As if any of them needed to be told that. The Inferi lurked below the surface, it was plain to see, firmly dead but still so very menacing. It was Sirius' turn to shake now, and Regulus stood still, eyeing the water with suspicion. They both knew by now that Regulus' body should have laid there. Hermione swallowed. They had to get to work. They had to be strong.

It was Luna that found the boat, standing over the slimy chains until the others had assembled round her. Hermione felt a twist in her stomach, that familiar rise and sink feeling that something, something horrible, was about to occur. Logically, she knew that it would not. They simply had to remain clear of the water, and to fight the Inferi with fire if they did appear.

So simple, and yet, so terrifying.

"Remember," she said. "Confringo, if they rise. Or any other fire spell you know."

"Not Fiendfyre," said Regulus. "I have seen that one go awry."

Hermione thought of the Room of Requirement, and Crabbe, who she'd never even liked anyway, and swallowed.

"No Fiendfyre."

They all nodded.

When, she wondered, when would everything stop bringing back memories of things she'd rather forget?

"On a further practical note," said Luna, her wand drawn. "How are we to travel to the centre? Harry was clear that only one wizard would be permitted to travel at once, or one wizard's worth of magical power, so as not to exclude the witches in the room."

"Kreacher will take me across," said Regulus and Sirius, both at the same time.

Hermione's eyes pricked with tears, and she didn't really know why.

She climbed into the boat, settling herself into it.

"Kreacher can send us backwards and forwards, until we are all on the island. We'll go together. And we'll come back the same way." She pulled a bottle out of her pocket. "I've brought water. I don't know if it'll last. Whoever drinks it will want water, and we can't disturb the lake. They'll be desperate for it, but we can't let them. Even if this disappears. We'll Stun them if necessary."

Regulus' face was set.

"We agreed that you would not drink the potion, brother," he said, to Sirius. "You have too much darkness in your past to force you to relive that."

"And the rest of you don't?" Sirius looked as though he might stamp his foot. "I've got no more than anyone else. I know what these two have done, and I don't need to know what you have done."

"I regret little," said Regulus, simply. "I regret not aiding you, and I regret my first murder."

Hermione and Kreacher were sailing away, to the tones of the brothers arguing and Luna half-heartedly intervening.

They seemed to come to a temporary truce, but once they were all on the island in the centre of the lake, actually facing the chalice full of the poison, it started up again.

"I just do not think that this is your battle, Sirius. It will harm you in a way that perhaps it will not harm the others of us. In a way it will not harm me."

"Regulus, I'm not fucking weak. I've been to fucking Azkaban. I've survived Azkaban. I coped with twelve years of shitty memories, I can cope with a few more minutes!"

"It is not just the memories, as Hermione described it, it is the whole effect. It will make the drinker weak. We do not know the cure."

"Yes, well, there's two of me, so I'm not any great loss. We need the rest of you!"

Luna waved her wand, and applied a Silencing Charm to both Blacks.

"It's got to be drunk," Hermione said, into the now slightly deafening silence. "There isn't any other way. Even Dumbledore thought so."

But, she suddenly realised, this was an advantage they had over Harry and Dumbledore, and an advantage they had over Regulus when he had come alone with Kreacher. Something Voldemort wouldn't have thought of, as he hadn't thought of underage wizards, or people coming in pairs.

Luna had seen it too, by the way she was looking at the four of them.

"Do you think it will work?" she asked.

"I don't think Voldemort thinks one person would dare to stand against him like this," said Hermione. "Let alone four."

Sirius was frantically flapping his arms, desperate to know what it was they'd worked out. Regulus merely raised one eyebrow, although he was clearly indignant at having been silenced.

"There's four of us," said Hermione. "One of us cannot drink, but perhaps the others can share it. Or at least two of us."

"Two would be safer," said Luna. "To ensure we can keep everyone away from the water."

All four sets of eyes strayed to the ominous lake. It was still and silent, but that made it worse. Hermione didn't think she needed to be able to see what lay beneath to know that it was terrible and dangerous and dark.

"Two," she agreed. "And two to save them."

Sirius pointed at himself. Beside him, so did Regulus.

"You're not going to be able to stop them, you know," said Luna. She wandered over to where the potion sat, ominous, and Hermione sighed.

Luna was right. Hermione knew that, despite her urge to protect the pair of them. They were grown men, both of them, and they knew what they were getting themselves into. But still. Regulus has enough darkness, and Sirius, well, it was almost all that he had left.

"Fine," she said. "Fine."

Luna allowed them their voices back, and Hermione forced herself to look as the two brothers readied themselves. They were treating it as a joke, comparing the ornately carved silver goblet Regulus had conjured with Sirius' Muggle ceramic mug. It bore the slogan 'just here to defeat Voldemort'.

"I've been learning to charm words onto things," he said. "In all the spare time I have away from vanquishing evil."

"The problem with evil," said Regulus, slowly, "is that it does not always appear to be so from the beginning."

"Indeed," said Luna.

They stood for a moment.

Perhaps making it a joke was the best way. It was too quiet, now.

"I'm going to remember about James and Lily and Peter," said Sirius, turning the mug over and over in his hands. "And Remus and Snape. And all of the other things I've done. I remember from Azkaban. I've done a lot of bad things."

"I have murdered in cold blood," said Regulus. He put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I have stood by as our parents mistreated you. I contributed to deaths of innocents, far more than I wish to know of. We have all made our errors."

Hermione wanted to ask if they were sure, both of them, but she knew that they were. Neither of them would allow another to take their place. They were more similar than they knew, the two of them, misplaced bravery, too much pride, and the urge for redemption of some kind. They wouldn't find it at the bottom of this potion, she didn't think, but they'd try, nonetheless.

"The words on the mug suddenly seem rather trite," said Sirius. He looked at it, raised his wand as if to fix it, and decided against it. "I'm not who I wanted to be. I'm not good. We're not, we're not good people, Regulus."

"But we are on the same side," said Regulus. "And we choose this path now, even if it is not the easiest. We choose to try, even in a small way, to do something."

"Yes. We're going to kill Voldemort."

"Together?" Regulus asked.

"Definitely. Bottom's up, brother."

They scooped at the liquid and one, two, three glasses had gone down each of them before there was any change in either man. Even then it was subtle. Regulus stumbled over the fourth swish of his goblet into the potion, his hand shaking. Sirius' eyes were half closed. Both too stubborn to let a fucking whimper out of their mouth, she realised. That didn't mean the potion wasn't already taking effect.

"Mother, no."

At first Hermione wasn't sure which of the two it had been to say that; their voice was so choked and strained that it didn't even sound like them at all.

It didn't sound like Sirius, but it was.

He was clinging to the edge of the bowl on it's raised platform, his mug and his hair trailing uselessly into the potion. As if he had been given permission, Regulus began to talk, too, mumbling and muttering things Hermione couldn't work out. Neither were lifting potion to their mouths, their skin a matching shade of clammy and pale.

"We're going to have to help them," said Luna, starting forwards before looking back at Hermione.

"We're going to have to force them to drink something that's doing that to them." Hermione didn't understand what she'd gain from saying that. It was speaking a horrible truth, wasn't it?

"Yes."

Hermione knew why. But that didn't meant this didn't feel like a betrayal. Not a Peter-level betrayal, but a betrayal nonetheless.

"It's better than their deaths. We're saving them from what their fates would have been otherwise." She had to believe this was the lesser of the evils. She had to. "Regulus has done this before. Alone. It's better he has us with him."

Luna only nodded.

"Come on, Regulus," she said, walking forwards and prising the silver goblet from Regulus' grip and dipping it into the potion once more. "You can do this, you know. You are strong. You're doing what's right. I think your wife would be proud of you."

"Francis," he said. "I killed him."

"Of course you didn't," Luna said, as Hermione's focus shifted to Sirius. "It's Voldemort's fault, ultimately, all of this. You're as much a victim as anything."

"James," Sirius was saying. "Lily. Harry. Remus. I think I killed them all. I don't know. Did I?"

"You haven't killed anyone," she said. "You've got to drink this."

"I don't want to," he said, pulling away, going down to his knees on the floor. "I can't. It's like being back there."

She didn't need to ask where. Azkaban, probably, but it could be Grimmauld Place, either of the times he'd been stuck there, or somewhere else he'd been left alone and without anyone.

"We're with you," she said. "Me and Luna, and Regulus, and Ginny, too, she'd be here if she could."

"Not worth that."

"We love you. I love you."

"Mother said nobody would ever love me."

"I love you," she repeated.

He seemed to disappear somewhere into his memories, stopping talking other than the odd mumbled word. She, still feeling like she was betraying him, used the opportunity to tip more potion into his mouth. He took it; he trusted her.

"Run," he said, his voice urgent, and she looked over her shoulder in case he'd seen Voldemort or Inferi or something like that. But his eyes were fixed on nothing at all, and whatever he was urging someone to run from was firmly in his brain. "Run, please, just run!"

"Sirius," she said, and his name brought his attention back to her.

"I've got to drink," he said. "Drink. Kill Voldemort."

"Exactly," she said, preparing another mug of the potion.

"Not much to go," said Luna, beside her. She was almost cradling Regulus in her arms as he shook, kneeling on the floor of the cave. He was trying not to say anything, she could tell from the look on his face. Luna turned back to him, prising his lips open. "Not much to go."

"You can't," he said, before forcing his mouth shut again.

"Little bit more," Hermione said. By her estimate, there were two scoops left now she'd taken this one. The Horcrux was almost within reach. She held it to his lips, and he tried to push it away.

"I can't," he said. "Don't make me. Please."

She wanted to cry.

"Just one more," she said. They'd promised not to lie. "Sirius. I love you, Sirius."

But he was gone again, and she didn't know if he'd heard her.

"Don't," he said. "Don't. Curse me instead. Not him. Not Regulus. Mother, tell him, it was my fault, it's always my fault, not him, Father, no."

"Drink this," said Hermione, doing her best to ignore the increasing anguish. "We can stop it."

He trusted her, he trusted her blindly, because he drank a mugful of the potion, and he smiled at her. Just for a second, before more memories hit.

Regulus had begun to scream.

And this wasn't the worst of it, Hermione thought, as she scooped up the last of the potion and tried to stop Sirius from falling. This was half of it. Half of the effect. Regulus had drunk the whole lot.

"Last one," she said. Sirius was gabbling incoherently, words that sounded like 'no' and 'mother' and 'James' and 'Remus' and 'take them, not me'. Words that sounded like regret and pain.

"You're strong," said Luna, beside her. "You're brave. There's room for more than one brave person in a family."

Hermione managed to get the last of it down Sirius' throat, and lowered him to the floor.

"It's over," she said. "Take it, Luna."

"This is Regulus' victory," she said. "Don't you think?" She crouched down, and shushed him, pulling him to his feet. "Regulus, this is it. You've done it. Take the locket."

He reached a shaky hand forwards, and he seemed almost lucid as he went for the locket in the basin. He pulled it out, and there it was, the Horcrux. Hermione couldn't help but shiver. It was, after all, the one she'd become so acquainted with when they'd taken it on a fucking camping trip.

"Did it," he said. His voice carried traces of pride, but it sounded nothing like he usually did.

"Water," croaked Sirius, at her feet. She reached for the flask she'd brought. It was empty.

"Soon," she promised.

"Water."

"The other locket," said Luna. "We've got to drop it in."

Regulus fumbled into his pocket.

"I must do the right thing," he said. "I made such terrible choices."

"You're making the right ones now," Luna assured him. There was a tear on her cheek. "You're doing the right thing."

"Water," said Sirius. "I can't. I don't want to. Please."

Hermione crouched down and held him to her, trying to impart with the movement of her hands along his back what she hadn't managed to say with words. Perhaps he understood. He relaxed, slightly, just enough that she stopped worrying he was going to make a break for the water and the Inferi and the risk of death.

"I love you," she said, again. Sirius sobbed into her shoulder.

"Well done," said Luna, to Regulus, and Hermione heard the sound of metal hitting the bottom of the basin. "We've done it. You've done it."

"I need water," he said.

"Of course," said Luna. "But first, a little sleep. Just to wait." She waved her wand over him, in a slow motion, muttering an incantation. "Just have a little rest."

Hermione recognised the spell, one Ginny had shown them both once to bring a patient into a healing sleep. She copied the motion on Sirius, still feeling disloyal, and he slumped into her more. She laid him onto the floor of the cave, and felt a rush of something leave her body. Relief, maybe. But it wasn't. Se felt dreadful for what she'd done.

They looked dreadful, too, both of them pale, their faces shining with sweat. Before their eyes had closed they had looked glassy and vacant, as if they no longer understood who they were or what they were doing, lost in memories. Regulus had done it, though. He'd done what he'd planned to, and he hadn't died.

Wasn't dead yet, Hermione corrected herself. They still had to make it out alive.

"They'll recover," said Luna. She sat down alongside Regulus, pulling her knees to her chin. She looked tiny in this place; they all did. "They will. We know the potion doesn't kill, because Voldemort would not want an intruder here to die. He would wish to kill them himself."

"We don't know that," said Hermione. Logically, of course, it was the answer. It fitted with his modus operandi, and Dumbledore, Sirius and Luna had all come to that conclusion independently, as had she. But the only people they knew of that had drunk it had died.

Except Kreacher.

"Kreacher," she said, and the elf approached her, as nervous as he had been since entering the cave. He'd kept his distance while they were feeding Sirius and Regulus the potion, and Hermione didn't blame him. "When you drank this, I'm sorry, I need you to remember, how long did it take until you felt well again?"

"Well enough to be travelling, young mistress, that was a few hours. But Kreacher did not feel right for days, he did not."

"Thank you."

"They will recover," Luna repeated.

"We need to leave," Hermione said. "Not because it's dangerous, well, not immediately. I don't think the Inferi will rise unless we provoke them, and there's no reason for Voldemort to arrive. He doesn't check it between now and 1998. Or he'd have found Regulus' note." Except that they were a month early, she remembered with a twist to her stomach. He might.

She stood up.

"Kreacher," she asked, "how did you leave?"

"Left," he said, unhelpfully. He had some loyalty to her, though, she was a Black, officially.

"Kreacher," she tried for a second time. "Tell me exactly how you left the cave when you came here with Master Regulus' Lord."

"The Dark Lord left Kreacher here," the elf said. "Kreacher left. By magic."

Apparated, then.

"You will take Luna and Master Regulus out," she said, "and then you will return for me and for Master Sirius. That is an order."

"Mistress says that he's a blood traitor," muttered Kreacher. "That he's a stain on the family name, he is. But Kreacher will do it."

"Please," said Hermione. She hated having the loyalty of an elf.

At least in that, she was pleased to know she'd not changed too much from the girl she'd been, before all of this. Before she'd fought her first war, before she'd fought this second one. Her last.

Luna and Regulus and Kreacher left.

She couldn't promise it would be her last though, could she? She'd never wanted to become involved in this. She'd never wanted to fight once more, another war against Voldemort. Another war where you feared for your own life, and maybe more, you feared for the lives of everyone around you.

Someone was bound to die, she thought. Someone other than Marlene. Someone she'd formed an attachment to. Because nobody escaped a war unscathed.

Kreacher was back, anyway. She took one last look at the cave, trying to remember it in her mind. Somehow that was important. Like it'd help her make sense of all of this.

"Time to go," she said. "We've done what we came for."

Sirius was asleep, and Kreacher ignored her. They left.

Ginny was sat on the sofa when they came in, knitting.

"I've checked on Regulus," she said. "I don't think there's going to be any lasting damage."

"Kreacher's fine, now," Hermione said in reply. "I'm going to take Sirius upstairs."

Ginny was still there when she came back down, puzzling over the knitting pattern beside her.

"How is he?"

"He's ingested a horrible, unknown potion. He's probably going to be fine."

"Yeah. He will be."

Hermione didn't know if it was blind confidence or just very convincing hope. She sat down next to Ginny.

"Why are you still up?"

"You think I could sleep, all of you gone?"

Well, no. Hermione wouldn't have been able to, either.

"We're back now," she said.

"I've got to be at Hogwarts in," Ginny paused to check the clock, "three hours. What's the point in sleeping? Might as well go through. McGonagall won't approve."

Hermione looked out the window to where the dawn was slowly breaking over the roofs of the terrace opposite. It was beautiful.

"I never thought we'd be doing this again."

"You don't," said Ginny. "Who goes through life thinking there's going to be another fight for your lives on the horizon? Well, Remus did."

"Yeah," Hermione said. "And Dumbledore."

"McGonagall. She said she never though Voldemort was dead."

"Hagrid," said Hermione, remembering Harry's report of what he'd said about Voldemort. "There's more than we think, maybe. The paranoid ones."

"The clever ones," said Ginny. "They were right."

"Wish they hadn't been." She thought of Sirius, upstairs, sleeping off the potion. "It's Sirius' third time round."

"There's going to have to be a confrontation, isn't there?" said Ginny. "Another final battle. A final showdown. Whatever you want to call it, we're going to have to face Voldemort again."

"Yes," said Hermione. "And this time, we won't have Harry."

"Shit, yeah," said Ginny. "Wish he was here. He'd know how we felt."

"We never really talked about it, actually," said Hermione. "We talked about the Horcruxes. Not much about what would happen after that."

"Never?"

"No. We were always so focused on getting to the next Horcrux, and then, when it finally happened that we decided to go into Hogwarts, because we knew Voldemort knew what we were doing, there was never any time to think about what that meant for Harry."

"For all of you."

"My job was always to get Harry where he needed to be. Ron and I agreed on that, once he came back. After that, I didn't really think about it. I always knew what my job was supposed to be. Why I was there."

"That's very noble." Ginny wrinkled her nose. "And very, well, very odd for someone who thinks prophecies are such bollocks."

"They are." She sighed. "I dunno. You get sucked in to these things. I doubt half of the Death Eaters believed in the prophecy, not really."

"True." Silence. Ginny fiddled with the ends of her knitting. "Balls. I've got more stitches than I should have."

"You've looped the wool over, look, there."

"Ah. Thanks, Hermione. I never understood how Harry relied on you so much. Basically, it's because you're a knitting genius."

"I've just been doing it a while."

"Minding Harry, or knitting?"

"Both." She put her own needles down on the sofa next to her. "But you're right, and I hadn't thought about it. We are going to have to face him again, and we don't have Harry to rely on. We don't have anyone who's faced him before, do we? We fired some spells at him in that final battle, but that's it."

"Sirius has. Dorcas. James and Lily. Dumbledore. McGonagall, allegedly. Regulus has spent a lot of time in a room with him, but I doubt that would help."

"Remus."

"What?"

"You said Remus did. A few weeks ago."

"Oh, yeah. But he doesn't know, does he?"

"We could tell him. Regulus took it well."

"Hermione. Seriously. You've gone from 'no, we can't disrupt the timeline', to 'let's just tell people what we're doing and hope the Ministry don't come to arrest us'. It's a bit disconcerting." Ginny threw the knitting aside. "I mean, I said this to Sirius, I desperately want to. But the more I think about it, we can't. Him visiting here was close enough, and that was only just to get him to stop going on about it."

"You're right," said Hermione. "We can't really tell him, can we? Regulus was different."

"Yeah. And there's times I don't think Regulus believes us, anyway. He was fucking desperate, that's the difference." Ginny shrugged. "You'll believe almost anything when you're desperate. Neville and I always believed Harry was coming for us, you know."

"Harry used to take out the Marauder's Map and watch your dot going around Hogwarts. Not Neville so much, admittedly."

"Aww. Well, I think that's sweet. It could be creepy, couldn't it? Lucky I liked him too."

"I did tell him that."

"Good. I think. Shit. I miss him really badly, you know. I probably still love him. And Remus. And I'm terrified of facing Voldemort. I feel like I need to go and bash a bludger at Sirius a few times, but the git is somewhere else."

"I think I'm okay with the fact that your coping mechanism is to go and hit heavy, dangerous objects at my boyfriend. Fiancé." She paused. "Besides, I'm afraid of facing Voldemort, too."

"Least it isn't just me."

"Yeah."

"Do you think Sirius is?"

"Probably not. I think Sirius is afraid of failing. Of being scared to try."

"Is it possible to be scared of both?" Ginny looked like she was trying to make a joke, but there was enough seriousness in her voice.

"Definitely." Hermione wondered if she wanted to ask this. "Do you think someone will die?"

"You mean except for Marlene and Jo?" Ginny asked. "Probably. Not a war without death, is it?"

Hermione was forced to agree.

"Dorcas was attacked," said Ginny. "Remus sent a message just before you got back. She went and did a patrol in Hogsmeade by herself. She knows that's stupid, she's the one that made the rule that everyone who goes out on patrol or on a trip should go in pairs, minimum. But she went, and now she's bleeding out in St Mungo's."

"Shit," said Hermione. All of what she'd been through, with Harry and Ron, and she'd never taken up swearing. Not until now. "Why St Mungo's? I thought the Order didn't use it?"

"No, they don't. But it was members of the public who found her, so they sent her there, and it's bloody difficult to get discharged."

"Is she okay?"

"She'll live. Be fine, most likely. Remus says we don't need to worry. It's all bollocks. Why'd we have to do this twice, Hermione? What did we do to deserve this?"

It was the exact question Hermione had been asking herself in the cave, well, in a more roundabout way. And she no more knew the answer now, with Ginny asking, than she had then. She sighed.

"I haven't got a clue."

"Ah. Balls. Ron told me you always had the answers."

"I wish I did." Hermione supposed everyone wished for that. Just most people wanted that without doing any of the work. "I feel so far away from Ron."

"Mum's pregnant with him. I checked, you know. Wanted to know he'd still be born."

"Good. I still feel guilty I've moved on. I promised to marry Sirius. And yet I still feel terrible about Ron."

"Join the club. I feel awful about Harry, but I love Remus, I really do," said Ginny, and then squawked. "You promised to marry Sirius? Fucking hell, Hermione, that's the sort of information I need to know immediately!"

In spite of everything, of the cave and Dorcas Meadowes and all the rest of it, Hermione laughed.

"It's all been a bit busy," she said. "You know how it is when you've got an evil mastermind to kill."

"Too well. But still," said Ginny, "but still! You're going to get married!"

"I think." Hermione was hedging her bets. "It's only because his mother thinks I should get married, and there's some ridiculous pureblood thing that can compel people to get married."

"She's going to use that on you? Fuck," said Ginny. "It's not a pureblood thing, half bloods can use it, but it's dark, Hermione."

"I'd worked that out already."

"Yeah, course. But it's really dark. The Weasley's don't use it, obviously, but even amongst the ones that consider themselves the proper purebloods, most of them wouldn't think of it. That's how dark it is."

"So you can see why this isn't a romantic thing."

"No, but it is," said Ginny.

"Sirius would do anything to help someone he loved."

"Sirius has some incredible issues with commitment," said Ginny. "If it was anyone else, he'd murder his mum before marrying them."

"He's just looking for an excuse," said Hermione, trying to brush over the fact that she was marrying a man who would, probably in all seriousness, murder his own mother.

"No," said Ginny. "He isn't. He loves you. He'd do anything for you. Do you want to get married?"

"Yes."

"To him?"

"Yes." Because she did. She just didn't want it to be about saving her from Walburga Black.

"Take him seriously, Hermione. I sometimes wonder how you two got together. You're shit at communicating."

Ginny went off to Hogwarts, and Luna went off to work, and Hermione, alone in the house with the two Blacks, decided she was going to try and get some sleep. But she'd always struggled with that, and she didn't want to take a potion, so she stayed up. She sat in the kitchen, nursing the same cup of tea, flicking through books.

That was how Sirius found her.

"Hello," he said, as if he'd woken up from a normal sleep, not one magically induced after ingesting half a basin of some unknown toxin. "Need water. Drank what you'd left."

"How do you feel?"

"Oh, you know, like I've been hit by one of those huge Muggle things on wheels." He drank two glasses of water, and then began drinking from the tap.

"A bus?"

"Probably."

"I love you," she said. "I'm sorry."

"You did what you had to do," he said. "Did we get it?"

"Yes." She held it out for his inspection, pulling it from the pocket she'd been keeping it in. She wasn't going to wear it around her neck, not this time.

"Nasty," he said. "You can feel it from here."

She put it away, opening the special bag Sirius had enchanted for them. Ginny had looked after it while they'd been at the cave. Not putting all your basilisk eggs in one basket, she'd joked. A basilisk fang was about what they needed, though.

"I love you too," he said. He turned his back to her, faced her, then put his back to her again in quick succession. Then he twisted around to look at her again, and popped himself down onto one knee. "I know I already asked," he said, "but I wanted to do it properly. The Muggle way. James did it for Lily, and, well, you'll probably hate it, and I was going to do it actually romantically, but fuck, marry me?"

It was almost as terrible a proposal as his first, Hermione thought, but there was only one answer.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, you idiot. I already said yes."

"And you didn't think I was just asking because I wanted to piss off my mother?"

She paused. He took the pause to mean what it did.

"It isn't," he said. "It's because I love you."

"I did think that," she said, because she'd promised to be honest, and she'd lied to him enough about that potion. "But it's more about my, I don't know, we're so busy trying to prevent the wizarding world going to hell in a handbasket that I think I forget that things can be nice just because they're nice. We can do things just because we want to, not because of some demand that we do it or someone will die. I know you love me."

"I think the correct answer is I love you too," he said. "Regulus says the ring is nice. If you hate it, just tell me."

She looked at the little box he was holding out for the first time, and it, honestly, it was perfect.

"It's beautiful."

"You're beautiful," he said. "And, also, it's fairly romantic that you want to save the wizarding world just as much as I do. I think we'd be incompatible, otherwise."

"I love you," she said. He pulled her down onto the floor with him, and slipped the ring onto her finger. "I love you."

Their lips met as they heard a cough from the door.

"I wished to thank you for your actions last night and before," said Regulus, primly, "but I see that now is not the time."

 _Luna_

 _August 1979, Ministry of Magic_

She had been in her office for about fifteen minutes when Betty arrived. Rather unsurprising, Luna thought. She had promised to return, and here she was.

"You haven't returned your colleague," she remarked, taking a seat opposite Luna.

"Nobody said that it was my responsibility to fetch her back."

"No. It wasn't even implied." Betty smiled. "You'll do well in my department."

Luna smiled her best insincere smile.

"I'm sure it's lovely down there," she said. "But I don't wish to."

"I never told you where I work," said Betty. For the first time in their interactions, she looked as if she had been thrown. Luna suppressed a genuine smile.

"I know things just as you do."

"Have you encountered me in your future?"

"No." Luna was certain of that. In her chronological time as her body was concerned with, which was what she suspected Betty meant, Luna had never seen her before she'd so rudely barged into her office and accused her of Confunding her colleague. She'd done that, of course, but she thought it unwise to admit to it. Confunding was not illegal, and neither was it against the terms of the work contract her mother had signed. Luna had checked. But it was likely to result in a confusing disciplinary hearing that she simply didn't have time for.

"Then how do you know that I come from the Department of Mysteries?"

"I deduced it," said Luna, "just as you came to the conclusion you did about that Confundus Charm. It appeared a logical conclusion, given the circumstances. I had no proof until now when you informed me of where it is you come from."

"So you did the Confundus?"

"I have neither confirmed nor denied it."

Betty looked as though she wished to put her head on her desk. Luna sympathised.

Admittedly, she also looked rather impressed with Luna, which rather was not the aim.

"Are you quite alright?" she asked. "Do you require refreshment? I am rather busy," she said, indicating her work, "and I have had rather a trying week." It was one way to describe being in close quarters with Lord Voldemort's soul. She'd not had much sleep, either. Luna dealt well with little sleep, but the combination of the two was not something she enjoyed.

"I am fine." Betty pulled herself up a bit, making herself seem bigger. A common intimidation tactic. Luna was hard to intimidate.

"Good."

"You are aware," said Betty, conversationally, "that unauthorised time travel carries a penalty of imprisonment in Azkaban."

"I am."

"You are Luna Lovegood, born in February 1981."

"That is what you believe."

Betty sighed. Even Luna was getting slightly bored of arguing in this way. But they had told Regulus, and perhaps Remus would know, and the more people that held a secret the more difficult it was to ensure it remained a secret.

She wondered what the official definition of a secret was, and precisely how many people could know before would cease to be known as such. Perhaps it was not an absolute number, but a proportion. Or perhaps it was about public knowledge. If they were to take out an advertisement in the Daily Prophet, perhaps.

Luna disliked the Prophet, but then, the Quibbler would not be formed for another year.

But that was not the point right now, she supposed, and she returned her attentions to the interloper in her office.

"I know you are a time traveller." Betty slid a page that appeared to be ripped from The Quibbler itself, featuring a photography of Hermione, Ginny and Luna alongside some of their other friends. The headline noted that Ginny Weasley, reserve Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, was to marry Harry Potter, Auror. Luna was named in the text, she remembered. Hermione's name was mentioned in the subheading, as a Ministry rising star and war hero.

"Charms can fabricate that sort of evidence," said Luna, but in reality it was fairly damning.

"There have been rumours for years," said Betty, stretching out and putting her feet onto a chair beside her, "that the Department of Mysteries possesses the ability to travel in time."

"Only backwards. And besides," said Luna, "it's no rumour. They've been used for academic use at Hogwarts since the 1940s at least."

"And the owners are sworn to secrecy, and Pandora Lovegood did not attend Hogwarts."

"I also did not attend Beauxbatons, but I know something of what goes on there."

"Much as I find these sorts of word games stimulating," said Betty, "I know the truth."

"You know the truth as you perceive it. Anything can be a truth with enough force of will."

Betty's only concession to being rather frustrated with Luna was to tap her hands on her thigh in a rhythm of annoyance. Otherwise, her face was impassive and her voice calm. Luna was rather impressed. Hermione would have become annoyed by now, and Ginny never had any patience for this sort of arguing. Only Sirius was a worthy argument opponent, really.

"Indeed," said Betty. "And so this comes under a banner of truth."

"It is what you believe."

"Aren't you bored here?" Betty asked, and Luna assumed she was now trying a new tactic. "Filing marriage certificates and registering births and deaths? Don't you want to use your brain?"

"I also deal with permits for large events, all of the paperwork for the Transportation lot, correct organisation of records of criminality, the filing of new laws, and an awful lot of other things."

"It doesn't use your brain, though."

Luna was forced to admit that it did not.

"What is it that you are offering?"

"A job that better suits your skills and experience. The Department of Mysteries."

"I do not wish to work there." Luna had been to that Department. She'd seen the horrors it housed. The prophecies that would ruin lives if only you let them.

"You saved my niece and nephews, you and your friends. You tried to save my mother. I don't want to have to report this to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"You have no proof."

"The Department of Magical Law Enforcement take a different approach to the truth as we do, Luna."

That much was true, whichever way you looked at it.

"Why?" she asked. She'd got Betty to go away by claiming a meeting before, but this time, she didn't think that would work. At any rate, she would keep coming back.

"Because I want you working with me. And I've been watching you and your friends. I know what you're up to."

"I work here," said Luna, "and my friends visit their friends. It's nothing much." But she was onto a losing battle, she could feel it. Not that she had foreseen this.

"One of them claims a relation to the Black family, and has formed a friendship with a Death Eater. Rumoured, of course, if we're talking of truths, but we know what we know, don't we? And another is with the Order. She's impersonating a living person, and that's a crime by the laws of wizarding society, too." Betty leant back into her chair, and offered Luna a mint. "And there's the other one, too. I asked my mother if she knew who he as, and she was tight-lipped. And that's what's funny. Mum never could refuse a gossip. He's Sirius Black."

Luna ignored that. "None of that makes any difference with you. It is not yet illegal to consort with Death Eaters, nor the rumoured organisation of the Order of the Phoenix."

"But you're from the future, and you're allying yourself with people that are going to make some rather significant differences. Tell me, where you came from, is there significance to Remus Lupin and Regulus Black?"

Luna remained silent, which, she supposed, was as much an admission of guilt as keeping going.

"Remus Lupin, the first werewolf to be awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class. Regulus Black, who disappears in the September of 1979, assumed murdered by his own side of this war."

"If they were, why would I know?"

Betty leant forwards.

"I'm bored," she said, with the tone of someone who's used to getting their own way. "You'll join us in the Department of Mysteries, or you'll find yourself getting in trouble."

Luna remained calm, because getting rattled never made any difference.

"I still don't much want to. I've got things I really need to be getting on with." She indicated the pile of paperwork. It was a metaphor, really, and she knew that Betty knew this. But really, honestly, this was far more than Luna could be doing with right now, she didn't really have the time for any of it.

"Oh, Luna," said Betty. "I'm willing to let you do what you want to this timeline. Which is a breach of my own rules. But in return, I want you."

"How did you find all of this?" she asked, having now accepted that she'd be going along with Betty's plan. The project was more important than what she personally wanted, after all. "As far as I am aware, time turners cannot travel forward in time."

"You don't think the Ministry allows the public to know of everything they come up with, do you?"

Luna supposed not. She knew they knew of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, after all, and were concealing that.


	54. Chapter 54: The Truth

**Chapter Fifty Four: The Truth**

 _Remus_

 _September 1979, Hogwarts_

"Hello," he said, to the gargoyle at the gate. "I'm here to see Professor Prewett."

This was an official visit, so no need for the Patronus up to the castle. The gargoyle said nothing in response, but Remus supposed he hadn't been expecting it to. He drew his cloak closer around him. He hated Scottish rain. It was wet and dark, far too cold and almost heavy. Everyone assumed he'd be used to rain, given where he was born. But Welsh rain was friendly; Scottish rain was anything but.

Besides, it was freezing and it was barely light even at this time of the morning, far darker than Wales would be. He understood the reason autumn and winter always hit the north of Scotland first and hardest, in terms of geography and meteorology, but he didn't want it and he didn't like it.

He was only here because Philomena was, and he wasn't even sure that should be a motivation any more.

There were an awful lot of things he wasn't sure of.

He'd investigated, dug around a bit more, but there was nothing to find. Or nothing he hadn't already found. Her family had been taken into protection by the Order. Helena wouldn't tell him where they were. She wasn't allowed, she said, and Remus didn't see the point in arguing the toss too much. Arguing with that meant arguing with Moody, and that was almost always a pointless endeavour.

So he couldn't go to see them, to ask some questions, so he'd come here instead.

He waited.

A woman in a forest-green cloak and pointy hat approached down the path, which wasn't Phil. He'd never seen her wear a witches hat, and doubted that she owned one. This was very clearly Professor McGonagall, who wasn't exactly who Remus wanted to see.

"Hello, Professor," he said, politely.

"Good morning, Lupin. You're here bright and early. I thought you were taking Philomena out for dinner this evening, not showing up at the castle as dawn breaks."

"I am. But she asked me to help with one of her classes this morning, first."

Professor McGonagall's lips pursed. "Yes, she did tell Albus that, I believe. I can't see why she couldn't let somebody already in the castle take that role. We do, after all, have to be careful about who we allow into the castle in this day and age."

She withdrew her wand from her robes and cast the spells that opened the gates. They clearly weren't too fussy, then, if they were letting him in.

"I have to say," she continued, as they began the walk from the gates up to the castle, "I did think the lesson plan was a rather good idea. They'll be going out into the world in the summer, and it's a dark one. I'd be happier if they understood it, much as I wish they didn't have to know."

"It is." The lesson had been his idea, so he was secretly rather pleased with that. "They're adults, by wizarding law. They should know how to handle themselves. They should be prepared."

"Sadly, you can be as prepared as you like and you may still end up dead," said McGonagall, striding forwards. Remus was taller than the Professor, but even he had to hurry to keep up. He could do with more exercise.

"Two families last night," said Remus.

"Yes, and ones that I know to be rather prepared. One of them was Caradoc Dearborn's brother's family, was it not? How is he?"

"I wouldn't know."

"I know exactly what Albus has recruited all of you to. Just because I am not a member, does not mean I don't know what's going on. What you're all doing." She kept striding onwards as she spoke, barely pausing for breath.

"Caradoc's holding up okay," said Remus. "I was with him when he got the news. Perhaps the shock hasn't hit him yet."

"I liked him," said McGonagall, shortly. "Him and his brother both. And how is Miss Meadowes?"

Given her statement about knowing exactly what they were up to, thank you very much, Remus decided not to act confused on this one. It wasn't worth it, with her. He'd stopped lying to her except in the most important situations in the middle of fifth year, not that she seemed to believe him any more than she ever had.

"I went up to St Mungo's yesterday. She's improving, but they won't let her out for another week. She's bored, I suppose."

"Yes. I remember she did not have a good tolerance for doing little."

"She said you weren't her teacher at Hogwarts."

"No," said McGonagall. "I was a year ahead of her in school."

"Oh, sorry, Professor," said Remus. He hadn't realised she was that young.

It was possible he'd said the last part out loud, judging by her face. Either that or he was more transparent than he realised. She stopped, and gave him an appraising look, clearly trying to repress a smile.

"Call me Minerva," she decided. "And I look older than I am only due to having to deal with your lot. Gryffindor House is certainly not the easiest to manage."

He'd never understood how to relate to Professor McGonagall, he decided, and he never would. She was like some distant grandmother, who was kindly but slightly disproving of your life choices. Except, as it turned out, she was younger than his mother. And wanted him to call her by her first name. And probably still didn't approve of a lot of his choices.

They made small talk as they completed the walk to the castle, but Remus was thinking about Dorcas. It had been an ordinary patrol gone wrong, except for the fact that it hadn't. It was supposed to be Caradoc and Sirius that had gone, two hours later once the meeting had finished. But Dorcas had been annoyed with Moody, so she'd stormed out, and, like she always did, wanted to do something useful. So she'd gone to Hogsmeade, and half an hour later, Death Eaters had attacked.

It could have been coincidence, but someone could have told.

It could be a coincidence that Philomena appeared to have two friends who looked an awful lot like Sirius Black, but it could be lies.

And, hence, he'd invented an entire lesson plan just to get himself access to the castle. It was part of a bigger plan, if a terrible, half-baked one. He reassured himself by saying it was no worse than the vast majority of Sirius' plans. James and Peter would have managed something better, probably, or James might just have wandered in and asked a lot of questions. But without involving anyone else, it was the best he had.

Because Peter had told him to stop worrying, and James had, too, and Sirius had enough going on what with his brother. Dorcas was in hospital, and the only other person he felt like baring his soul to was the one he was so uncertain of.

Minerva was right, with the Dearborns and Dorcas and Regulus, and the rest of it, it was a dark world out there.

"Minerva," he asked. "Hasn't Dumbledore asked you to join the Order?" It felt impertinent, like asking a teacher about their personal life. But she didn't like Voldemort, she'd made that clear, and she wanted to see him gone.

"Many times. I have refused."

"Why?" he asked, feeling like he was pressing this. But it was important, wasn't it? There were people dying. And then maybe he could tell her what was going on. He didn't want to go to Dumbledore or Moody with his suspicions. It'd seem stupid if it was all false. Like he couldn't be trusted.

"It is rather complicated," she admitted, "as these things often are. And rather personal."

"Sorry," he said.

"No, perhaps you are right to ask. We are all adults, even if sometimes some of you seem like children. You're too young for this, all of you, but perhaps there is never a right age to agree to put your lives on the line. I lived through the Muggle World War. I lived through some of Grindelwald's rise and his fall, Remus. I saw friends and family sign up to die."

"What happened to them?"

"Most survived, whether by luck or their own actions. Some died. Some live, in body, but are unable to continue their lives. I do not see the process of fighting as inherently noble."

"Neither do I," he said, because he didn't think he was romanticising it or something. "But it's important. It's going to be there until someone stops it."

"Yes," she said. "I'm afraid that it will."

"Do you know something?"

"No. And anyone who tells you they can foresee what is going to happen is lying to you, Remus. I am resisting the rise of the man they call Lord Voldemort in the ways that I can, but I cannot join the Order. Resistance comes in a variety of forms. I must protect my students."

"I suppose." He thought that sounded childish. "Yes, there needs to be people at Hogwarts who're able to protect the castle."

"It's always pleasing, if rather strange, when troublesome students grow up to become adults who I am proud to have taught."

"Do you think so?"

"Remus," she said, the short tone he was used to from his Hogwarts years returning. "Do learn to be less down on yourself. Believe you're right once in a while. Learn to take a compliment. It's all going to be terribly wearing for Philomena if you can't."

"Thank you, Professor."

"Minerva."

They were at the gates now.

"I'll show you upstairs," she said.

"I can take myself."

"Good lad."

Philomena was probably a spy, wasn't she, if Dorcas had been caught just as she'd been patrolling, and they'd gone for Dorcas, it wasn't a raid, it was like they'd known she was there. Her story didn't add up.

His plan was terrible.

But the Marauder's Map was bewitched to show everyone as they truly were. Polyjuice couldn't fool it, you'd still be shown if you were under the Cloak or in an Animagus form. It had been so they could keep track of Sirius' more annoying methods of trying to sneak up on them. But it wouldn't be convinced by just calling yourself a different name.

He just had to get it back.

"Remus!" She certainly greeted him with enough enthusiasm when she came in. Perhaps she really did like him. Maybe a spy could genuinely grow to love someone they found themselves spying on. Or she was a really good actress.

"Hello," he said, unable to summon up the required amount of enthusiasm to match hers.

"Oh, come on," she said. "Anyone would think you hadn't missed me."

"Of course I have," he said, but it wasn't true. He hadn't allowed himself to. Not since she'd got that name wrong, her fabricated friend being someone else entirely, mostly likely, and his doubts that he'd put to bed had returned. He kissed her. He still loved her.

"Lesson starts in five minutes," she said, "else I'd show you my room."

"Later," he said.

Remus sat in the rafters as the lesson started, his appointed place. It was strange, being back here, watching all the uniformed students file in. Half of them were deadly serious, here in Defence Against the Dark Arts. He noticed some he recognised, the brothers and sisters of people he'd known. Some of them had felt the war on their families. It made sense they'd be serious about this class. Others were still consumed with silly things; two girls at the back arguing about whether Imelda was still going out with Eustace, and two boys deep in a discussion of Quidditch. Not one of them looked around the classroom as they entered.

It was a combined class of Gryffindor and Slytherin seventh years. It'd be hard to teach for anyone. For a new professor teaching a contentious class, it was going to be close to impossible.

"My name is Professor Prewett," began Philomena, clearly trying not to look at the students that made up her first lesson as a teacher at Hogwarts. "I will be your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this year."

"You're not much older than us." The voice came from a girl in the front row, a Gryffindor and a Prefect from the badge on her robes. Though Sirius had worn Remus' once and nobody noticed for two days, so he didn't always take wearing the badge as a mark of actually being entitled to the position.

"Have you fought any Death Eaters?" Phil asked. "Ever been in mortal peril?"

"No."

"Well, I've faced down Voldemort and lived to tell the tale." Several students gasped at the use of his name. Others grumbled.

"Right," she said. "What dangers can you see in this classroom?"

The boy next to the girl who'd spoken first put his hand up.

"Yes, Mr?"

"Mr Jacobs. And Professor, it's a classroom," he said, as if explaining the obvious to a kid. "It isn't supposed to be dangerous."

"Wrong answer. Anyone else."

"Well," said a girl near the back, with blonde, curly hair. "For a start, there's only one exit. But perhaps more importantly, there's a man in the rafters."

As one, the whole class looked up. Remus offered them a cheery wave. That girl might survive, he decided, but then, Minerva was right. It was a fucking disaster.

He shouldn't say that to the children.

"Ten points to Gryffindor. And that is why you should be aware when you enter a room. He could have hexed any one of you if he'd wanted to, or worse, and Mr Lupin here is fast, so he could have got at least three of you before you managed to work out what was going on and begin firing spells back. What's your name?"

"Lucy Cartwright, Professor. And I remember him. He's one of the Marauders. He turned all of the second floor of the castle into jelly once."

"Hello," said Remus. He conjured a ladder and climbed down it, landing at the front of the classroom next to Phil. "Hello Lucy. I caution all of you not to use that jelly spell. It can only be described as a jelly flood." It had been James' idea. James was not known for subtlety.

"You can't do that," said one of the Slytherins. "You can't hide someone in the classroom and tell us he's going to hex us."

"I never said he would," said Philomena. "I said that he could. Who can tell me what's going on outside this castle?"

"There's a war," said Lucy, instantly. "Well, the Ministry says there isn't, but there is. People are dying because some other people," and she paused to glare at Amycus Carrow, halfway back in a mass of Slytherins, "are going around killing anyone they don't think is good enough. And You-Know-Who's behind it," she finished, with a defiant toss of her hair. "We all know that."

"There's no proof," said another Gryffindor. "Just speculation in the Prophet."

Several other students opened their mouths, and the more law-abiding of them raised their hands. It was going to break into an argument, if Phil wasn't careful.

"The Ministry does say there isn't a war," said Phil. She came around the front of the desk, and sat on it. Remus was fairly sure that was unprofessional teacher behaviour. "Professor Dumbledore says I can talk to you about it, if that's what you need to stay prepared."

"Does that mean we can ask you questions?" asked the boy at the front.

"Only if they're relevant academically. My job is to teach you to be safe out there. So if it's just rumour-swapping, then no. If it's about something you think you need to be safe from, then yes."

"Good," said Lucy. "Because my aunt says he's using Inferi."

"Inferi will be covered later this term," she said. She turned to the Slytherins, now. Might as well address the thestral in the room, Remus thought. Half of them would grow up to be Death Eaters, rumour was Amycus Carrow had been seen in battle. "Not all of us may end up on the same side of all of this. I do not expect this classroom to become an extension of any war that may or may not be going on outside of the castle. I also do not expect this to turn into accusations of who may or may not be joining or fighting Voldemort."

Several students gasped and shuddered and jumped again at the use of the name. Amycus Carrow and his little band of friends looked like they wanted to hurt her. Remus just looked worn, and wary.

"There are scarier things out there than a man's name."

Teaching, for a start. Remus was glad this was her, not him.

"Now," she said. "What else in this classroom should we be assessing for danger?"

"You're good with them," said Remus, after the students had gone. It was true. She'd put the fear of the war into him, a healthy fear they'd need, without scaring their cloaks off.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she replied.

"Well," he said, coming a bit closer. "You know what it's like out there. You know what they're up against. We know."

"I don't know if I did too much. Is teaching them there could be people hiding anywhere just going to give them nightmares?"

"They're all of age. They need to know."

"That's what Sirius said."

Remus' eyes narrowed.

"I didn't know you'd been talking to Sirius about this."

"Maybe it wasn't Sirius, then. Maybe it was Peter. Or Dorcas. I forget. I've asked quite a few people for advice. No, it wasn't Peter. He said not to do the man in the rafters trick."

"I thought I was special," he said.

"Oh, you are," she said. "It was your idea. You're the one I asked to help. I love you, don't I?"

"I love you, too," he said, but if she was lying, which he still didn't have any proof of, was she lying about that?

They went for a walk around the lake during the free period she had after break, under the guise of Remus showing her the grounds.

"Mind you," he said, as they were walking down to it, "it's too bloody cold to enjoy them half the year."

"Warming Charms," said Phil, who was clearly far more outdoorsy than he was.

"This is the Willow," he said, indicating it. "There's a secret passage underneath it taking you out to the Shrieking Shack. Useful for werewolf transformations, but also, sneaking into Hogsmeade."

"I bet there's loads of secret passages around here," said Phil. "It's an old castle, isn't it?"

"Ancient. It was smaller at first." He turned around and pointed. "Look. You can see that bits were added at a later date, if you look closely enough. Some say the castle adds them itself if it can see a need."

"Do you think that's true?"

"No. There's sixteen entirely unused classrooms on a corridor on the fourth floor, and a hall with a stage. Why would the castle add that? We had a look around, we don't think any of it's been used for centuries."

"Maybe the castle thinks things would improve if the students took drama lessons. Rather than being dramatic about boyfriends and Quidditch."

"It might be worth a try. Suggest it to Albus."

"No." Phil laughed. "I get the impression that, around here, if you come up with a suggestion then you're the one that has to do it."

"It's why Minerva always looks stressed."

Phil laughed again. "She lets you call her that now?"

"We had a heart-to-heart this morning. I think she likes me better now I'm not her student."

"I've taught one lesson, and I think I'd like them all better if I didn't have to teach them." She looked more serious for a moment. "You know a lot about the castle, don't you?"

"I was a nuisance. If you're going to cause trouble, it's always useful to have an escape route." The conversation was going exactly as he'd hoped it would. "We made it our business to know about the castle. We even made a map."

"Like the ones the first years are running around with?"

"No, better. It moves when things do. There's a classroom that's in a different place on a Thursday, so it maps that, and a staircase that's a useful shortcut between Charms and Gryffindor Tower but only sometimes, other times it goes to the dungeon. And the people, too. It sees where everyone is."

Phil looked impressed.

"That's very advanced magic," she said. "It sounds brilliant. Where is it now?"

"James, the dickhead, got it confiscated by Filch a few days before we left here for good. He's the caretaker, if you haven't met him yet."

"I have. What happened?"

"We were trying to do one last prank on someone we didn't like," Remus explained, "and James stopped to argue with Sirius about something. They were so busy arguing that neither of them looked at the map, didn't see Filch coming, and Sirius disappeared under the, well, he disappeared, and James couldn't lie fast enough to explain what he was holding to Filch." Remus sighed. He didn't want to explain the Cloak to Phil. Not when he couldn't trust her. "Unfortunately, unbeknownst to any of the rest of us, James had enchanted the map to insult people we didn't like if they tried to open it. Filch got enraged and confiscated it. He thinks it's Dark Magic, because it said he was a Squib."

"Is he?"

"Probably. The enchantments James used were good at spotting people's weaknesses. Apparently he was trying to fine-tune it to be a bit less offensive, sort of mildly annoying rather than actually rude, but hadn't managed it yet. He's not very good with subtle."

"Where's the map now?"

"As far as I know, in Filch's office."

"I could try and get it back for you," she said.

Remus' heart leapt.

"It might not be possible," he said. "He might have just chucked it on the fire. But I doubt it. That man keeps everything, from what we can work out."

"It's worth a go," said Phil.

It might prove a lot.

He went to her office, and sat in it while she taught the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw third-years after lunch. She'd decided on Disarming Charms, and, by the sounds of it, they were enjoying the practical element of the class.

He wondered what he'd say if the Map revealed her to be someone else.

 _You're a spy for the Death Eaters._

No, because then she'd curse him and get away. Kill him, even.

 _I don't think we can be together any more. You're going to sell us all out to fucking Voldemort._

Almost as bad. Also a lot of potential for just getting out her wand and killing him.

Although, if she was a clever spy, she wouldn't. She'd Imperius him or something, so it all looked normal. She wouldn't want her cover blown.

 _Have you been adopted at birth or are you trying to kill us all?_

He wasn't any good at this.

Whatever he said was going to end in disaster, so Remus decided just to go with the time-honoured Marauder tradition: make it up as you go along and hope for the best. It had lost some of it's joke once the best had become 'not getting killed today' rather than 'not getting a detention from Flitwick when you're exploding toilets in Ravenclaw Tower' but there you are. It was difficult to teach an old dog new tricks, and apparently wolves and stags and rats took a while to learn, too.

"Alright?" Phil asked, and he realised the lesson must have ended. "How's the book?"

Remus looked down. He had no idea what it was about.

"Terrible," he said.

"It seems a funny choice," she said. "Where did you even get it from?"

"Found it," he replied. "Thought it was yours."

For some reason Phil laughed.

"Why would I need to read sexy werewolf romances?" she asked.

Remus put the book down as if it was burning his skin. He didn't like the idea of his problem being romanticised.

"I think the previous occupant must have left it behind. There was a whole pile of stuff," she said, waving her arm expansively at a side-table that was now empty except for a copy of _Which Broomstick?_ and a drawing of a tiara.

The previous occupant of the office was a large, burly bloke in his fifties, but Remus wasn't one to judge someone else's choice in bad novels.

"Anyway," she said, "I got your map."

"How?" He was itching to get his hands onto it, but he was trying to remain calm. It'd look suspicious. Or like he was quite childish.

"Told Filch I'd been asked to keep an eye out for Dark objects in the castle, given the climate out there, and he begrudgingly allowed me to check. Albus did ask me to, so it's even an entirely legitimate acquisition, but I think he was talking more about students bringing stuff in than Filch."

"Can I have a look?" he asked. "I'd like to see it again." And then, to make it sound not too urgent, he continued. "Filch is nasty to almost everyone, but he's not a Death Eater type. I don't think he likes people enough to join anything like that.

"You're probably right."

She handed it over.

"I tried to open it," she said, "but it didn't insult me."

"Must like you," he replied. "It's supposed to be able to identify supposed troublemakers and give them hints as to how to open it. We wanted future generations to be able to use it." He took it. It felt familiar in his hand. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he said, tapping it with his wand.

"Where are we?" she asked.

He was already searching. Dumbledore was in his office with Amycus Carrow, of all people. Minerva was alone on the seventh floor. Hooch and Flitwick were in rather close quarters in his bedroom. So that was still going on, then.

And there he was, Remus Lupin, in the Defence Against the Dark Arts office, alongside another name.

Ginny Weasley.

Her face had gone really quite pale, which was saying something, with her ginger hair. Remus pulled out his wand and pointed it at her. It seemed like the thing to do. She might be dangerous.

She was a liar of some kind.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Why are you spying on us?"

"I'm not," she said. "I'm not. I promise. And definitely not for who you think." She pulled up her left sleeve and displayed her arm proudly. "See?"

"They wouldn't mark a spy," said Remus. "It'd give you away."

"They would," said Ginny. "They would, they're not that clever."

He'd expected her to go for her wand, by now, or for his, but she stood there, calmly. He'd expected her to run. He'd expected that he'd have been more angry, shouting, perhaps, yet he was surprisingly steady.

"Shit," she said, and to his surprise sat down. "Bloody bollocks."

"What are you?" he asked. "Who are you?"

He grabbed her exposed wrist and tapped his wand to it.

" _Finite Incantatem. Revelio. Specialis Revelio._ " Whatever spell he tried, her arm remained clean, not marked, free of dark magic tattoos.

"I'm not a Death Eater, Remus. I promise you. If I was, why would I be sitting here? I'd be cursing you, or killing you, or I don't know, Imperiusing you so I could continue spying without being suspected."

"You act like you know things about what's going to happen. Dorcas was attacked after she'd left that meeting, and you knew about that. Your housemate looks like Sirius Black, but he's been called two different names by you. You won't tell me things about you that I should know." He paused. It sounded less significant, now he said it out loud. "You're not Philomena Prewett."

"No," she said. Her hand was shaking. "I'm not. I'm Ginny Weasley."

"Weasleys aren't Death Eaters, usually."

"Neither am I. I'm, oh, fucking bollocks, Remus, this is shit."

"My girlfriend has been lying to me for months. I'm fairly sure I know this is shit. Do you even love me?" It wasn't the time for that. Logically, it wasn't the time for that, it being far more important to ascertain who she actually was, but it felt like the time for that.

"Of course I do, Remus," she said. "Of course I do."

"But you've been lying to me."

"I had to. Bloody hell. You thought I was a spy?"

"What else are you?"

"I don't even know if I can tell you that."

He stood up, knocking over the chair in the process of hurrying to the standing position, raising his wand once more.

"You expect me to believe you're not a spy without proof, when all you can say is that?"

"I, shit, Remus, I don't know what I can say."

Remus found that this took more courage than facing any Death Eater he'd fought in a battle.

"You'd better work it out," he said, "else I'll march you up to Dumbledore."

He meant it. He refused to give in on this.

"The truth," he said. "I want the truth."

"You won't believe it."

"I won't know if I do until you tell me."

She stood up too, and walked over to the window, shutting it. It seemed too little, too late, if she'd wanted this to be a secret.

"I'm a time traveler," she said. "I've come from the year 2002, where you're firmly, inescapably dead, and we're trying to make the future not so terrible as it turns out that it is."

Honestly, Remus didn't think he did believe that. Why would he? It smelt of buying time.

"Prove it."

"The problem is," she said, "as any scholar of these things is aware, I can't. There's no way to prove it. Especially as we've gone so far away from what happened, anyway. Lucius Malfoy is alive, you see, twenty years in the future. The odd person should be dead. Anything I tell you could be bollocks by tomorrow. Luna and Hermione have read all the books. Bloody Sirius has, too. I tried, but I don't understand a word of it. I'm sure I can lend you their reading material."

"Sirius?"

"Not your Sirius." She sat down again. "That bit is even more complicated."

"Tell me."

He didn't know if he believed all of this. It was far-fetched. It was unlikely, bordering on impossible. She was just marking time, waiting for reinforcements. Amycus Carrow was a Death Eater. He was in the castle. Maybe more, coming up through the secret passages he'd mapped.

What if this was the truth?

Somehow that was worse.

"So there's currently two Sirius Blacks, alive and well in the late 1970s. One of them is yours, the one who's been here all along. My one dates from 1996."

"You said that you come from 2002."

"Yeah. I do. He doesn't. He died in '96, or supposedly, another bit I don't really understand, but he's here. There's two of him."

"How?"

"Like I said, I don't know. Luna had a theory we're all actually dead. The further I get into all of this, the more I think she had a point." Ginny, if that's who she was, stood up once more, and began faffing around with a little kettle over a conjured flame in the corner of her office. "Tea?"

"Okay." He thought about it. Why would he have tea with his girlfriend the spy, the woman concocting ridiculous stories to try and make him believe she was something she wasn't. "I'll make it."

"Checking for poisons," she said. "Wise."

"Veritaserum," he said. "Anything."

"I don't blame you. Not that you shouldn't trust me. But in your situation, I wouldn't trust me."

That didn't make Remus feel any better about all of this.

They stood in silence as the kettle boiled, both of them looking firmly at the lump of metal over the flame and not at one another. This wasn't a situation Remus had anticipated, to state the bloody obvious. He'd planned for a nice, romantic evening having dinner at the Three Broomsticks, or an explosive interrogation about whether she was a Death Eater. Not this. Not her claiming she was from the future, a future where he was dead.

"How did I die?" he asked. "If any of your story is true."

"Killed by Antonin Dolohov in the battle where we finally got rid of Voldemort for good. May 1998."

"Late thirties. That's the average age for werewolves, you know."

"Well," she said, "you were the first werewolf to be awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class. Posthumously. Is that the word for it?"

"Yes," he said. Nobody wanted to know when they died. "And so I've got less than twenty years left?"

"Dunno," she said. "We've been messing with stuff. You might die tomorrow. We all might."

Remus didn't find that comforting, perhaps unsurprisingly. Nobody would.

He could go to Albus anyway, he decided. Albus would know how to deal with this. Or Moody, but Moody wouldn't handle it with any tact. Maybe he should call Peter. Or James. Sirius would be useless. It'd be silly to try and deal with something like this alone.

"Why?" he decided to ask, which was closer to dealing with this alone than it was to anything else, and therefore unwise. "Why are you here?"

"Accident," she admitted. "I had a nice life. I was happy. I didn't want to go back into war."

"Why did you stay, then?"

"Because once I was here, it seemed stupid not to try and help. Like I was condemning a load of people to misery because I didn't want to disrupt my own life. Wouldn't you try?"

"How bad is it?" He wasn't answering the question. "How bad does it get?"

"Like I said, I don't know. We've been messing with things. But where I came from, when I came from, oh, I hate talking like this, it got really quite bad. A lot of people died. Voldemort died, they thought, but then he was alive again, and there was a second war. It was different to the first, but no less deadly, I don't think."

"What happens to us?" He didn't want to know, did he? "I die. Sirius dies."

"I don't want to tell you."

"You have to. I won't believe you if you don't." He still didn't believe her anyway.

"You all die. The four of you and Lily."

"Fuck." Somehow he was sitting on the floor. He didn't have to believe this. She was a Death Eater who was doing something to try and get to him, so he would be weaker when they arrived, she was lying to him, anything, something, it had to be better than this all being the truth.

And it was fucking stupid, it wasn't the actions of someone who wanted to survive, to sit on the floor in a bloody office in Hogwarts with a spy. A time traveller. Whatever she was, he couldn't trust her.

"I don't think it'll happen," she said, crouching beside him. "I think we can stop it."

The kettle whistled.

"You're lying," he said. "You have to be. It isn't plausible. All I've ever read on time travel says you're not allowed to go back more than a few hours at a time, you're not allowed to use it for anything other than trivial things, you're not allowed to do this sort of thing at all. So, you're lying."

"I'm telling the truth," she said. "My name is Ginny Weasley. Ginevra Molly Weasley. I'll be born August the eleventh, 1981. Just before the war ends for the first time. I attended Hogwarts in the future. I met Voldemort. I fought in that last battle, I killed Lucius Malfoy, I signed a contract to work here, I love you. I'm not going to lie to you any more. I hate that I lied before. I'm going to tell you the truth now, and I love you, Remus Lupin."

"I don't know if I can love you. I can't love you. You lied."

"I know. That's okay." She slid down to sit next to him. "I mean, it hurts, you're right. I was a shit girlfriend."

"I did love you." This wasn't how it was supposed to go. "You are, were, the first girl I loved. This isn't how it's meant to be."

"You want the fairytale love like James and Lily."

"No, I don't," he said. "Because theirs isn't that, anyway. I wanted something honest. Something where I could just be me, everything that I am and don't want to be, and she'd love me anyway."

"And you thought this was it."

"I thought this was it."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

She reached for his hand, he pulled it away.

"I would," he said. "If people had died and I had the chance to go back and fix it, I would."

"We thought we wouldn't, at first. We thought we would make it all worse. Well, Hermione did, especially. And maybe we will. But it's about trying, I reckon. And we know things you didn't know the first time around, because we've seen how it ends, we've seen what it takes."

"I don't want to believe this."

"I haven't wanted to believe any of this." She reached for his hand again, and this time, he let her take it, lacing her fingers in between his. The touch was familiar, warm, comforting. But not right. "If I was you, I'd have hexed me."

"Thought about it."

"I could tell."

"What do we do now?" he asked. Take her to Dumbledore. Call James or Peter. Take her to Moody. Contact the Ministry, even.

Believe her?

"I can't believe you," he said. "It's too, I don't know."

"Farfetched?" she suggested. "Unrealistic? Too much like made-up bollocks while I wait for my Death Eater cronies to come and kill you?"

"Yes."

"I understand. Well, I don't. Would I believe a time-traveller? I don't know. It's not a scenario you think much about. Sirius said he wouldn't."

"I don't. I can't." He was repeating himself. He didn't have anything much new to say. Just the same thoughts, same questions, same panics, floating around and crashing into one another and getting themselves the total of nowhere at all. "I want to."

"I can call someone. Get someone to verify my story."

"If you were lying, you'd have pre prepared someone. Rehearsed it well so that whatever I asked, they'd have an answer that matched yours."

"True. Hermione did the whole Unbreakable Vow thing. I could do that. Promise to tell you the whole truth. If not, I'd drop dead, and you'd be free of the problem anyway."

It didn't seem like the best solution. It wasn't the worst.

"If you're not the spy," he said, "I don't want you to die."

"Reassuring."

"I don't know if I want to continue this." He hoped she understood.

"Fair enough."

Neither of them, apparently, were clear about what it was they did next. A common theme in this conversation. At least it was out there now. Whatever it was.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she said. "I thought your Map might show me by my real name. I had some experience with it in my time. I got it because I thought it might force me to tell you all of this."

"If we're doing secrets," he said, "I don't know how I'm going to live my life knowing that we all die."

"You won't," she said, and Remus wished he could share her optimism. "You won't, we won't let you."

'I'm just as in charge of my own future as you are," he retorted. "Although, maybe, none of us are."

"Do you want to come somewhere with me?" she asked, suddenly. "I was going to do this tomorrow, on my own, but I think a romantic dinner for two in Hogsmeade is firmly off the table."

"Where?" He was wary. Less so than before; he'd decided, somehow, that this was a bloody long-winded trap if it was one, and it probably wasn't. But still.

"I swear that this is the truth," she said.

"On your magic?"

She grasped his hand and repeated the words, and he sealed their little oath with a tap of his wand.

"I'm supposed to be finding a segment of Voldemort's soul that's hidden in the castle. He's immortal, see? So we need to destroy the Horcruxes, that's what they're called, and kill him afterwards. If we're going to end this."

"If we're all going to live." It was selfish, to think of it in those terms, wasn't it?

"If we're all going to live," she repeated.

She'd put her life on the line for him. She hadn't needed to be involved in this war. And that had to mean something.

"Okay," he said. "I'll come with you."

"You trust me?" she asked.

"No." He could be nothing but honest. "But I'm going to try."

They left her office and walked from there to the seventh floor. He kept the Marauder's Map tucked in his pocket, warm and comforting like an old friend. Their conversation was light, almost approaching the inane, and Remus was stopped three times by various teachers that remembered him, and once by Peeves, who, to Ginny's surprise, bowed low and sang Remus a song.

"We always got on, me and Peeves," said Remus, by way of explanation. "I think neither of us felt like we were supposed to be at Hogwarts."

"Peeves never leaves, that I know of," she said. And that was their only allusion to the situation, in their whole journey up to the top of the castle.

"Where are we?" he allowed himself to ask, as she paced up and down outside a stretch of wall that was entirely unremarkable. She said nothing until a door appeared, slowly creating itself out of nothing. That in itself wasn't anything Remus hadn't seen before, being as he was an expert on the hidden parts of Hogwarts, but this door was new to him.

"Room of Requirement. I'd have thought you'd have found it."

"No. What is it?"

"A room that does exactly what you want it to do, as long as you know how to ask. I lived in it, basically, for a few months at one point. It's clever. I can't believe you never found it."

"Maybe there's some things we missed," he allowed. He briefly wondered if this was all some kind of hallucination or dream, or if he'd made the mistake of trying to brew his own potions again. His last attempt at an Elixir to Induce Euphoria had produced something along these lines.

They couldn't have missed something like this.

"Come on," she said, standing in the doorway. "We haven't got ages."

The room was cavernous. The ceiling stretched upwards, but the floorspace was minimal, cluttered as it was with almost everything that had ever been in Hogwarts, or that's what it looked like.

"The Room of Hidden Things," said Phil, or Ginny. "We don't think most of it was placed here. We think some of it just ends up here. But Voldemort put his diadem here on purpose. After he'd made it into a Dark thing, of course."

"Diadem," he said. She had the drawing of the tiara from her office in her hand.

"Looks like this," she said, showing him. "I never saw it. Hermione drew me a picture. Sirius made it look better. But she only saw it for about five minutes before it was destroyed, so hopefully we'll find it. How many diadems can there even be in here?"

Remus took a proper look around, but even then, it was impossible to take it all in.

"Lots," he said. "More than one."

"Splitting up is a terrible idea," she decided. "Let's go this way. If it's where it was, it'll be near some ugly bust of some long forgotten wizard."

Remus could see three ugly busts just from where he was standing. He sighed.

It was a potion mishap, he decided, it was the only answer.

He was inspecting a pile of books, one of which he was convinced was his original copy of the _Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4_ , that Peter had misplaced in fourth year, when he heard her shout from behind him.

"Got it!"

He flicked the book open. It was his. He'd recognise Sirius' annotations anywhere.

"Got my old spellbook," he said.

Phil was clutching a tiara in her hand, and looked rather pleased with herself. She held it out to him to inspect, and Remus recoiled away by instinct. It was horrible. Clearly, it was something Dark, that much she'd not been lying about. It was something he felt as if he should run far away from, or smash into a thousand pieces, but it wouldn't be easy to destroy, it was certain of it.

"I know," she said. "I want to throw it back into the Room and leave it behind." She slipped it into her pocket instead. He'd never seen her in witches robes before today, always jeans and jumpers or t-shirts.

"Aren't we going to destroy it?" He was certain she'd said that was the plan.

"Can't," she said. "Not much destroys Horcruxes. Nasty fuckers, they are."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Take it to Sirius. He's trying to work out a way to destroy them that won't involve stealing Basilisk fangs or killing himself in the process." She shrugged. "It feels anti-climatic, doesn't it?"

Remus nodded. It did. It was not the way he'd expected his day to turn, he still wasn't entirely sure what was the truth of it all, but it did feel like an anti-climax.

"Voldemort's soul," he said.

"Ridiculous, isn't it."

"If he was immortal, or close to it, we'd know. Wouldn't we?"

"Dumbledore suspects at some point," she said. "But he doesn't start to investigate Tom Riddle until the 1990s. He doesn't get any evidence until then. Even though he started making them when he was at school." She shuddered and went pale.

"Tom Riddle?"

"Voldemort's real name."

"He won a special award for services to the school." Remus had been given sixteen detentions that involved polishing trophies. He knew them all by heart.

"For framing someone else for the murder he used to make himself immortal. And creating a weapon in the process." She shuddered again. "I don't want to talk about that. Sorry. I can't."

It was real, he decided. All of this story was the truth, because this girl who had said she was Philomena Prewett was having some kind of reaction to the mention of that weapon, whatever it was Voldemort had done, and he didn't think, somehow, that it was fake.

Remus gave her a hug, despite the fact that she'd lied, despite the evil radiating from the thing in her pocket. She deserved that.

"Is it true?" he asked. The oath bound her to tell the truth. Not with death, but he'd know if it wasn't. "Are you a time-traveller? Is this all some elaborate lie?"

"I'm a time-traveller," she said. "It isn't a lie."

"Shit," he said. It was all the truth.


	55. Chapter 55: Reunion

**Chapter Fifty-Five: Reunion**

 _Regulus_

 _September 1979, Grimmauld Place, London_

Lord Voldemort would not be patient much longer. Of that, Regulus was certain. The news of the baby had kept him happy for a while, but Regulus knew he would require action on other things, soon. He'd done some small tasks for the man who had once been his Lord, but he had not done what had been asked of him so long ago.

And now, he did not see how he could.

To kill his brother had been one thing, when he had thought that he hated him and everything that he held dear. He'd tried. He'd thought he could succeed, and that he'd wanted to succeed.

To kill his brother now was entirely another.

Regulus had met with him, or one of the hims, and they had spoken like equals. And they had attempted to bring down that Lord that had ordered him killed together, or continued a process his brother had started. He could not kill him, and yet, if he did not, somebody else would be ordered to. Somebody who might have fewer problems with doing so.

But that was for the future, if the near future. He had other things that required his more immediate attention. Ascertaining exactly if Voldemort checked on the Horcrux that had been in Lucius Malfoy's possession, for a start. And, secondly, dealing with his mother.

"There are eight," Hermione said, standing in the upstairs, informal living room adjusting the flower arrangements with her wand, dressed in robes of midnight blue and her hair likely charmed by Adeline. "Eight potential husbands your mother has found for me. How many of them have taken the Mark?"

"Enough," said Regulus, in reply. He was not entirely sure who it was that his mother had invited, although he was capable of making an educated estimate. Rabastan Lestrange had bragged of an invite, even as his mother had wondered aloud if it were a social faux pas to betroth a cousin to the brother of a cousin's husband. And he wore the Mark. It was perhaps as many as all eight that did.

"She's still saying before the end of the year."

"Are you willing to bind yourself to my brother by that time? It is the only solution that does not come with risk."

It was that or her leaving the family, and they had agreed that Hermione would continue to play her part as Lyra. It was the sensible option, given that she was useful in procuring information, and for her to disappear suddenly would give rise to questions. And, besides, her mere disappearance would not prevent his mother having her way; nothing except a permanent leaving of the family would do so. And he did not know how to perform that rite.

But Regulus wondered if it was perhaps also selfish. He operated now in a world where his every move had to be thought through, the secret he was hiding carefully contained. She knew the truth. He could, in carefully controlled circumstances, speak freely with her. And so he wanted for her to stay around, and that, yes, that was selfish.

"I want to marry him."

"How do you know?"

He had known he wanted to marry Adeline because it had been the right thing to do. It had been what was expected, and she was everything he had been brought up to believe was a perfect wife for a wizard of status.

"I feel like I couldn't do anything else." She paused for a moment, adjusting a part of her hair that did not need it. "I don't think I'd have thought to do it, marry, I mean, without all of this. This time last year, I couldn't tell if he hated me. But once he suggested it, I couldn't think of anything else I'd do."

"Destiny?"

"No," she said. "I don't believe in destiny. It's, I don't know, it's just what I want."

Regulus did not find it to be making sense, but he supposed it did not matter. He was growing to love his wife, after all.

They went down into the drawing room, where the company was divided; witches on one side of the room, and wizards on the other. Regulus escorted Lyra in, as was proper, and went to join the discussion amongst a knot of his friends. Lyra disappeared off amongst the women, to where Adeline was with her hand protectively over the small swell of baby underneath her robes.

"There's news from France," said Maximus Burke, several years older than Regulus but less well regarded by the Dark Lord. "I heard that Abraxas Malfoy will be sent to resolve the crisis."

"Malfoy is worse than useless," Rabastan Lestrange declared. "If our Lord wants it resolved correctly, he ought to ask someone with skills."

It descended into bragging, and Regulus came to the realisation that these were not his friends. As surely as he had acted against their Lord, he had acted against each and every one of them. And they would not forgive him. They would be ordered to kill him, perhaps, or they would do it themselves by their own decisions. No, they were not his friends, and he did not belong amongst them.

And if that was true, which it surely was, then where exactly did Regulus Black belong?

His brother stood with him. For the first time since they were ten and eleven, yes, but they stood together.

He was, thankfully, seated with Adeline at lunch, and no longer was forced to endure the bragging and the competitive games of words that the Death Eaters played. He had not had much time for these even when he felt a part of it. He understood when one would wish to promote themselves to their Lord, even to compete with one another for his praise. If one wished to advance in a world such as theirs, they must be seen as useful to those who could give such advancement. The Dark Lord, and a few of his most trusted.

But many of these games were not that. They did not seek to advance a cause or a person, they did not work towards a stated aim. It was something else entirely.

But Regulus still did not know where exactly he now belonged.

That was the price he paid, perhaps. He decided it was for the best that he did not dwell.

Not that he had time to. Dividing his attentions between Lyra, Adeline and stemming the flow of his mother's scheme left him barely any time to attend to his supposed friends.

"She's determined to marry her," said Adeline, afterwards. "Don't you think?"

"It is considered a family duty to ensure that unmarried witches are given every opportunity to marry," said Regulus.

"If they wish to. And of the duty, I am already aware. My mother, after all, ensured my marriage to you."

"And Lyra does not wish to."

"I met with several of them when I was looking for a husband. I do not think anyone would want to marry some of those wizards."

Regulus knew his wife well enough to know that this was not the point she truly wished to make. He held his tongue and waited. Hermione and Sirius appeared to have a relationship within which they said what they willed. It was not that case here.

Adeline, as he had assumed that she would, continued.

"But she doesn't want to marry at all, and your mother is not listening to her."

"And you hope that I am able to ensure that my mother listens." Regulus did not know anyone, save Grandfather Pollux, who could force his mother to listen to anything she did not wish to hear.

"I assume you want to help Lyra. She is your cousin, after all."

"She is. And I do. But it is more complicated than that."

They, he and Hermione, and Sirius with them, had decided that for him to dissuade his mother with too much vigour would raise suspicion. He had always seen family honour above all else. The Regulus of a year ago, of half a year ago, would have encouraged his mother in her actions.

"Francis Macmillan sort of complicated?"

"He is dead."

"I know what I know, Regulus."

His heart felt as if it would stop in his chest. He had used a Memory Charm. It had been unethical, but it had been the right thing to do. She would not, could not, remember the events of that night.

"And what would that be?" He was steady, because he had been taught to be so in all situations.

"The two of you were close at school. Perhaps you believe Lyra should marry because you were forced to, even though you perhaps did not want to."

Regulus did not have time for this. He was supposed to be comparing notes on their discussions with the Death Eaters with Hermione, at her house, and instead he was here, talking of this.

"I do not understand."

"You had relations with Francis Macmillan. At school."

"Why do you ask that?"

"I'm not asking, Regulus. I'm stating a fact to you, and you do not make a move to deny it, do you?"

"Why did you marry me?" he asked. "If think that you know that."

"Because I wished to marry someone who appeared to be kind, and stable, and who had the ability to be something other than what the rest of the wizards I am able to marry appear to be. I never wanted to marry someone who was in league with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"And yet you must know of my allegiance."

"I know what Mark you wear on your arm."

"I am loyal to the Dark Lord."

He had lied to the face of his former Lord, professing loyalty. That had been difficult. And yet, this, lying to the face of his wife, was more so.

"My mother told me," said Adeline, her hand rubbing softly over the bump on her belly, "that one rarely loves the man she marries when she begins her marriage. And I didn't love you. But you didn't love me, either. Lyra wants that from the beginning. She doesn't want to have to learn to love someone. I want to learn to love you, Regulus, but can you love me in return?"

"I believe that I can." This, at least, was the truth. He'd believed that he had loved Francis, in the end, even though he had not been able to say that to him at the time that it had mattered. And that had been different; not only for reasons of the obvious but in that he had chosen Francis for himself. He had chosen Adeline, yes, but if he had not been required to marry, would he have?

"I am perhaps not who you would have wished for."

"I know I am not for you."

"But you are."

Was he? She had just spoken of her desire to marry somebody who was not allied with Lord Voldemort. And he was. The Mark on his arm would forever remind him of the poor choices he had made before he was even out of Hogwarts. And so he was not her choice.

"I chose you," she said. "I am pretty, from a family of good breeding, and I am passably intelligent. I had many wizards approach. But I chose you."

"Why?"

"Because you show the ability to be kind. To believe in something aside from killing people in the name of a Lord. Francis Macmillan was close to a blood traitor. The Macmillan family aligned themselves against the Dark Lord some years ago. And yet, you associated yourself with him."

"You chose me on the basis of an ill-advised liaison?"

"No. I knew what you were doing. It isn't why I chose you." Adeline sat herself on the bed, reclining back, her hand never leaving the bump. "It showed you were capable of being something else. Something other than the vast majority of those who my mother would have found suitable for me to marry."

"Did you not worry that I may not be interested in witches?"

"I thought that you would."

Regulus did not understand the turn that this conversation was going. He had not wanted to talk about Lyra's marriage, but, it transpired, neither had Adeline.

"Do you honestly believe that you could love me?" she asked. "Perhaps, with the baby on the way, and with Lyra's talk of marrying for love, it's made me wonder if it is something we'll reach."

She was beautiful, and clever. She had chosen him, knowing what she knew about him. And she carried their baby. Maybe Hermione's talk of marrying for love had burrowed itself into his head, too.

"I think that, perhaps," he said, reaching for her, "that I do. That I do love you."

"Good," she said. "I love you, too."

"Despite my Mark?"

She smiled as his arms wrapped around her. "Despite. I wish you were not involved."

"I caution you against saying that outside of this room," he said. The fear in the pit of his stomach returned, momentarily, at that. He fought it away. "They would not like to hear it. And I will protect you, but I do not want you to ever be in the position where I am required to."

"I won't," she said. "I won't."

 _Sirius_

 _September 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea_

It was a Sunday.

Sirius was supposed to be researching, but he was predominantly watching a programme called _Farming_ on the television, which was proving very educational. Sirius was not sure exactly when he'd need to know all of this information about cows, but then, you never did know when you'd need things.

It had moved onto a discussion on crop rotation by the time Luna wandered in.

"You're watching the sheep programme again," she observed.

"Cows this week," he said. "And crop rotation."

"I see."

Perhaps he watched this programme more than he realised. Perhaps he should stop.

"Ginny's due soon," he reminded Luna. "She's going to bring the Horcrux."

"Good," said Luna, sitting down. "It's strange, her not living here all the time. Isn't it? I miss her."

"So do I."

Twenty minutes later, Sirius no longer missed her. He missed the quiet, instead.

The first thing that threw a spanner in the works, as they'd said on _Farming_ , was the arrival of Regulus five minutes before Ginny was due to arrive. And it wasn't that the two of them didn't need to meet at some point, but there was a right time, and Regulus appeared rattled.

"Ginny's going to be here soon," Hermione warned him.

"I am capable of speaking to the fourth member of your group," said Regulus, rather sniffily. He and Hermione began comparing notes of gossip from the day before in the kitchen, and Sirius watched the beginning of a television programme about bed and breakfast hotels. Luna sat on the arm of the sofa, swinging her legs back and forth as she read a book on ritual magic.

Sirius wondered why Regulus was being so sharp.

The second thing that happened was that Ginny did not arrive alone. She clattered into the kitchen making such a noise, and the first he heard of this was the shouts of Regulus and another man in tandem.

No, she'd decided that today of all days was the best one to bring along Remus Lupin.

To be entirely fair to Ginny, she looked mortified. Regulus turned his wand onto her, which was predictable, and Remus drew his back. Also predictable.

"No," said Hermione, firmly. "No fighting in the kitchen."

Remus turned his wand on her instead.

"Phil," he said, almost imploringly. "Phil, he's a Death Eater, and she socialises with them."

"She's Hermione. She's come here with me. And he's Sirius' brother." Ginny indicated Sirius as she spoke, and Remus spun, keeping his wand trained onto Regulus.

"You're Sirius."

"Hello."

"He's a Death Eater," Remus said, returning his gaze to Regulus, almost as if he was filing Sirius away under 'problems to deal with later'. "He's a fucking Death Eater, Phil. Why's he in your house?"

Predictably, Regulus chose that moment to speak

"You are the women who killed Lucius Malfoy," he said.

"That's me."

Sirius thought about leaving the room and coming back when they'd sorted it all out.

"You killed my friend. I promised to seek my revenge on the witch who killed him."

"You've not killed me yet," she observed. "Ginny Weasley."

"Otherwise known as Philomena Prewett."

"Yeah. I'm a Prewett on my mother's side, originally, so it seemed the obvious deception. The real Philomena's abroad. I don't think she knows I've stolen her identity."

Regulus looked like he was considering walking away. And Sirius wouldn't blame him. He didn't think he could look Peter in the eye, even now, and Regulus' loss was far more recent.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's shit losing friends."

"He would not be my friend if he knew what I have done, and what I am prepared to do."

"That's true. But that's not how it would have felt at the time, is it?"

"Who did you lose?"

Ginny sighed, shifting from one foot to the other, and crossing her arms.

"I lost a brother," she said. "He died fighting. And my first friend at Hogwarts, Colin. Lavender. Tonks. More, but I won't bore you with names you don't know."

"I am sorry for your losses," said Regulus. "Even if not so long ago I would not have mourned their loss."

"And I don't think I'd mourn Malfoy," said Ginny. "But I'm sorry, too."

This was going far better than Sirius could have expected it to, but it wasn't going particularly well. Ginny was nervous, still shifting around, not quite managing to stay very still. And Regulus was perfectly still. He prided hime on having learnt their mother's lessons on staying calm. But he was cautious still, his wand not lowered, waiting for something to go wrong.

"We're all on the same side," said Sirius, in an attempt to remind everyone why they were even all in the same room. "We all want to end Voldemort."

Luna, behind Sirius, smiled. "Indeed," she said.

"I'm Hermione Granger," said Hermione, walking forward and greeting Remus directly. "I've been pretending to become a member of the Black family for the last few months, to get access to some things that we needed. But I'm not really a part of them." She looked down at her ring, the amethyst stone glinting slightly in the artificial electrical light. "Well, I'm going to marry Sirius."

"Congratulations." He lowered his wand, and, opposite, Regulus copied. "Phil said her friends were safe. This wasn't what I was expecting."

"And it was not what I had expected either," said Regulus. He held out his hand to Remus, formally. "Of course, we are acquainted from Hogwarts. But perhaps it would do us well to start again, as it were. Regulus Black."

"Remus Lupin." They shook. Ginny looked rather smug, Sirius thought.

"And Luna," said Luna, coming forward, and to Remus' clear surprising giving him a hug. "Luna Lovegood."

"Pandora," he said. "You were Pandora before."

"My mother," she said. "It's rather easy to pretend to be your own mother."

"And now we all know one another," said Hermione. "I didn't know you were going to tell Remus, Ginny." Thankfully, her tone was without any judgement.

"I wasn't. The Marauder's Map, it sort of did it for me. He helped me get the - oh, I almost forgot about it. Here." She dug in the nondescript brown bag she wore over her shoulder, and pulled out a gift-wrapped present. "Happy birthday."

"It's not until Wednesday."

"It's a terrible present."

Hermione took the parcel, wrapped in garish green and yellow paper and secured with a large, pink bow, and began to untangle it from itself. Something silver and sparkling appeared, and Sirius felt it before he worked out exactly what it was. Probably, he should have known. Ravenclaw's diadem.

"You got it?"

"Looks like it. Stinks like it, too, the thing's riddled with Dark magic."

It was Hermione's turn for hugging, thrusting the diadem into Luna's hands and throwing herself at Ginny. She seemed unsure whether to do the same to Remus, and settled for putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you," she said. "Well done."

"Wasn't even difficult," she said. "I reckon we got the easy one."

"It's a part of Voldemort's soul," said Remus, as if everyone else in the room hadn't already had close contact with one. He was probably just overwhelmed, in Sirius' opinion. He had been, when he'd first known of all of this. It was ridiculous, frankly, that one man should split his soul so much.

"Just the cup," said Luna.

"If he's made it. We don't know that." Ginny took back the diadem, turning it over in her hands. "These things are nasty, so let's hope he hasn't."

"I have been asking," said Regulus. "And Hermione too."

"What do you do with them when you have them?" Remus asked.

"Sirius and Luna are researching it," Hermione said. "We know a few options, but the ways we've done it before are tricky. We had access to Basilisk venom, then, which is by far one of the safest ways to destroy a Horcrux."

"Where did you get a Basilisk from?"

"I set it loose in Hogwarts," said Ginny, shaking her hair. She still hated talking about this. "It was an accident, and also Voldemort's fault." Another shake of her hair. "Though, I find you can blame Voldemort for most things if you try hard enough."

If Remus hadn't looked confused before, he did now.

"Voldemort? A basilisk? Accidentally?"

"It's a really long story," said Ginny. "And I hate telling it. I was only eleven."

Sirius decided to intervene.

"Maybe we should sit down somewhere," he said, "rather than just standing around in the kitchen."

"I am going to take a turn around the garden," said Regulus, stiffly. "Hermione and I need to continue our work."

"Perhaps Sirius and Remus would like to sit in the living room," said Luna. "Alone," she added, when Ginny made to follow them.

Sirius was not sure he did want to. But Remus went off without questioning it. He turned to Ginny.

"You knew the Map would reveal you," he said. "It was always going to, if you were silly enough to show it to him." He'd heard their stories enough times to know she knew that. "It showed bloody Wormtail as himself even though he'd been a rat for twelve years. The Map knows. Which you know."

"I did know."

"You did it on purpose."

"I did it on purpose."

Sirius thought about it.

"Hermione will kill you," he said, "but only a little bit. And I'd have done the same thing, in your situation."

"I know."

"How did you get it back? Filch confiscated it in '78."

"Got it back by asking, essentially. Perks of being a teacher."

Sirius supposed there had to be some.

"Are you not going to follow him?" asked Luna, eating a pear. "I think he really would like to speak to you, you know."

"Of course."

"You aren't leaving." It didn't even take Luna's powers of deduction to work that out, did it?

He should go in there. This was why he'd come back to the past at all. To see his friends.

Well, no, it wasn't. He wanted to save their lives and let them live happy ones, rather than the mess they all had waiting for them in their unaltered futures. He'd wanted to save his brother. And yes, he had wanted to see them, but the closer he had a chance to it was feeling more and more like a terrible, terrible idea.

"Sirius," said Ginny. He was stalling.

But they already had a Sirius, they did. Remus and James and Peter and Lily had one of him already, and what did they need another one for? Yes, it had all gone fine with Regulus, and on parchment that had more chance to go wrong than a meeting with his friends. But he knew the situation. He knew what the other him was like, for starters. What if they didn't like him, this new him who'd seen what happened to them all? What if they were happier as they were? It wasn't like they didn't have every right to be.

"What if he doesn't like this me?"

"You don't know anything until you try it, Sirius."

Luna half-pushed, half-steered him into the living room. Remus stood in the middle of it, almost entranced by the programme now on the television, some kind of pirate boat epic thing. The characters were all wearing ruffs, for some reason.

He looked much as he ever had, even if he was subtly different from the Remus of his most recent past. This Remus, the one who was only nineteen, was larger, not yet slightly shrunken into his frame from years of everything that had happened. His clothes were neater, his hair without the grey, his face softer and friendlier and without the lines. He looked so young. Or perhaps Sirius just looked so very old.

This Remus was just as wary, though, his eyes assessing everything that was going on, even while he had one eye on the screen. Perhaps this Remus hadn't yet learnt all of the things he was going to, seen all he'd see, but there had been enough that he wasn't who he'd been. Who they'd all been. The boys who'd walked into a war they thought they'd win in a year or two, because in what tale does the side of the right not prevail.

"Remus?"

He turned. He really did look so young.

"Hello," said Remus, extending a hand.

Very formal, Sirius thought.

"Hello," he replied, accepting the hand. It didn't do any harm. "I'm Sirius Black."

"I know." Remus was cautious, Sirius could tell. "I've met you. But you've met me more than I've met you."

"Yes."

"I allowed you to be locked up in Azkaban, I hear."

"I don't blame you." Sirius had forgiven Remus for that a long time ago. "I'd have done the same."

"Yes. The Sirius I know would never betray the Potters. But the Sirius I know would barely hesitate to kill someone who did."

"It gets worse," said Sirius. "You don't believe that now. I didn't believe you ever would, now. But there's a time when I don't believe that you're innocent, and that's what starts the whole thing off. It's my fault."

"The Sirius I know would say that."

"I don't know how much I'm like the other Sirius."

He didn't. Sirius tried to be more patient, less likely to fly into a fury of words or actions than his younger counterpart. He tried to think more, plan, work through his ideas before he did them. But he wasn't always sure how much he succeeded.

"What does Phil say?"

"Ginny? She thinks I've grown up a bit. But I still feel like I'm the same."

Remus sat down, and somehow he looked incredibly out of place on the faded floral sofa, even though there was nothing that pinned him as that. Regulus, the thought made sense. He was all crisp, expensive robes and the house here was nothing like Grimmauld Place where he seemed to belong. Remus was, decoratively, similar. But it didn't seem right.

"I can't get my head around calling her Ginny. She's Philomena."

"She's sort of both, isn't she?"

"Maybe it doesn't matter," Remus said.

"Maybe not."

"It's strange," said Remus, after a few moments of silence. "I've known you since I was eleven. And I don't know what to say. Because I don't know what you've done, except the basic facts, and you know everything about me."

"Probably not everything."

"Everything that matters."

That was probably true. The Marauders had been a group where secrets didn't last long. The longest-lasting had been Remus' werewolf problem, and that had been less than a year and a half when they were all eleven and twelve and not the most observant. They didn't keep secrets. By 1981, they had, but they didn't now.

"You can ask me things," he said. "I'll answer."

"Isn't some of it things you'd rather not talk about?"

"I've told the rest of them," he said. "And, besides, no secrets in the Marauders, is there?"

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," said Remus, with a slightly sad smile. "Did James and Lily really die?"

"Yes."

The confirmation looked like a soul-crushing blow to Remus, but then, it had thrown Sirius into such a madness he'd chased Peter down to a confrontation and he'd never considered what the outcome could be. He'd felt like the world was ending.

"And we're not going to let them, this time?"

"No."

"Good."

"You used we."

"I know." Remus' hand reached to the back of his neck, scratching at his hair. "I barely believed Phil when she told me. I didn't know if I should try to kill her as a spy or report her to someone, Dumbledore or the Ministry. Would you believe her?"

"We discussed this, all of us. I said I wouldn't."

"I think I feel better that I'm not alone in being distrustful."

"You're, we're, we're in the middle of a war. Distrust is sensible."

"Moody still alive in the future, then?"

"He lost an eye, even after the war, but yes. He survived this one. Not the next."

"If Moody can die…" Remus let his words trail off, now fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

"Everyone can die. I should know. Technically, I did."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not the way I did it. I imagine it does, other ways."

Remus shook his head, as if berating himself for the question.

"You don't want to think about that," he said.

"Surprisingly," said Sirius, "it isn't one of my worst memories. It gave me the chance to come back here. To try to save everyone. James and Lily. Regulus. You. I've even been persuaded that Peter is redeemable."

"I don't die. And I haven't been able to see Peter since. I feel like I want to rip him apart. Or lock him somewhere for the rest of this fucking century. Phil thinks he won't, this time, but I can't look at him the same way. I can't risk it."

"We have to," said Sirius. He tried to convey in his face that actually, he'd wanted to do all of that too, in the hope that Remus understood this wasn't some misplaced nicety, being too far from the events of '81, but something he'd come to. "Because if we try anything, we drive him towards the Dark Lord, perhaps. We've meddled so much that we don't know what's going to happen. We're feeling in the dark, really. Voldemort might not try to murder the Potters at all."

"So you're hunting down Horcruxes and hoping for the best?"

"Essentially."

"It's a very Sirius plan."

Sirius laughed. "It's slightly more complicated than that. Hermione, if you've met her, and Luna, they're clever. They think we can end it."

"Why does he go after the Potters?" Remus asked. "Philomena - Ginny - never said."

"There was a prophecy," began Sirius. "Dumbledore heard a prophecy saying that a child would be born at the end of July, and that'd be July 1980, and that only the child would be able to defeat the Dark Lord. And someone else heard it, too, and reported it to Voldemort, and that's why."

"Shit." Remus had picked a string of thread from his shirt, which he now held between his fingers. "And we're going to stop that, too?"

"We don't know." Sirius sighed. They'd been over that, and hadn't ever come up with a viable solution. "We think it might be impossible, without involving either Dumbledore or Snape."

"Snape?"

"He reports it to Voldemort."

"We kill him?"

"Hermione's ruled that out. She says he redeems himself in the future." Sirius sighed. "I'm still inclined to agree with you."

He realised he was still standing and sat down opposite Remus, in the armchair. He'd relived everything a thousand times, before coming back here and after, and yet this was entirely different. The other Remus had known everything he knew. The others, those he'd met afterwards, they'd known what he'd told them about the fateful months and weeks and days before the deaths of James and Lily. And he'd told the truth, and it had hurt. But telling Remus, who still may be forced to experience it if it all goes wrong, that was the worst of it yet.

"You look terrible," said Remus, something Sirius knew to be true. "So removing Snape is out. But why can't we involve Dumbledore? He'd help, I know he would."

"We didn't want to tell anyone. Because the more people that know, the more people we're influencing. Like I said, we've been trying since December last year to influence things, and we think we've done it without too much going on, but then every so often we do something small and we realise just how much it affects. Ginny killed Lucius Malfoy. It wasn't supposed to happen. The Malfoy's are looking after a Horcrux for Voldemort."

"And so Voldemort could discover that it goes missing?"

"It's been missing for months. We're hoping it was his old school friend Abraxas Malfoy that he gave it to, and so he's content that it's secure. But if it was Lucius, sooner or later he'll decide to move it."

"But why does that mean we can't involve Dumbledore?"

"He's too dangerous."

"What do you mean?"

Sirius sighed. They'd discussed carefully what to reveal to Regulus, because it had all been so carefully planned out. This had not been anywhere in the plan, even though maybe he should have assumed it might happen, so they didn't have an agreement. And he didn't even know what Ginny had told him.

"You can't tell anyone any of this."

"Who would believe me?"

Sirius laughed, but that wasn't the point.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "You still have to promise."

"I won't."

"So Dumbledore knows too much. And he's afraid of having power. And his main aim is to take down Voldemort, isn't it? If we told him anything, he'd use it. And we wouldn't be able to control how."

"But surely it doesn't matter who ends this," said Remus. "As long as it happens."

"It does. Because we've messed around so much. We need to control what we're changing, else it'll spiral into something, and then Voldemort stops acting like he's supposed to." Sirius tried to come up with an example, and ended up standing on the sofa, pointing at things, muttering the incantation that revealed them to eyes other than those who lived here. "So we've saved Regulus' life, right? He was supposed to die a month ago. He never married, back in the original timeline we knew, and his wife's pregnant. That never happened. So if he says anything in a Death Eater meeting, or Voldemort learns anything from him, then it's all fucked. Voldemort finds out someone's been moving Horcruxes too early. Regulus dies. But that also happens if it comes from any source. And we've removed ones that he might check on, the only one we know he doesn't is the locket in the cave. He might go to any of the others. And Malfoy's dead, and Francis Macmillan, and others, Rodolphus is in prison. Bellatrix is angrier than she should be. We've saved people that should have died."

"But if you tell Dumbledore, he'll be able to make sure he doesn't do anything."

"No. He doesn't know about the Horcruxes. If Voldemort gets a nose that anyone's looking, it all goes to shit, and he's watching Voldemort. And so's the Ministry."

Remus didn't look like he understood. Sirius flopped down, pulling the sheet with the Horcruxes on with him.

"See? Dumbledore doesn't know about them until '92. When Harry and Ginny destroy them all."

"Harry? Ginny said she had a fiancee called Harry."

"Yes, she did. In the future. He's James and Lily's son."

"The one who has to kill Voldemort?"

"Yes. He does, by the way. And he and Ginny get together."

Remus paused. His eyes went back to the film, pretending he was engrossed, before he asked the next question.

"Do you think she'd go back to him? If she could?"

"They don't even know if they could get back." Sirius didn't know how to answer that. He'd never been good at this sort of conversation. He supposed he could only repeat Ginny. "I don't think so. She doesn't think she does. She says she loves you."

"I love her. I think. Even after all of this."

"You're a better man than me."

"Always have been."

Sirius laughed properly this time. "And modest."

"It's bloody weird there being two of you."

"Definitely. I keep wondering what will happen if one of me dies. I've done the research, but, you know, for obvious reasons it's not something that people do tests on."

"I suppose not." Remus stood up and looked over all the pieces of paper pinned to the walls. "You're engaged, then?"

"I proposed to save her from my mother's schemes, believe it or not. But it isn't just that, in the end. I love her. It's funny. I didn't believe in the sort of love that this is, the one where you don't feel like you'd be happy if you weren't with them. I thought it was James being melodramatic, again. But it's true, isn't it?"

"I think so," said Remus. "Do you think Ginny loves me? Really?"

"Of course she does. She's honest, if nothing else. She hated every second she had to lie to you."

"It's funny you call her honest. She lied to me for months." Remus folded his arms, unsurprisingly looking fairly cross. Not as cross as Sirius would have been. Definitely less cross than the younger Sirius would have been.

"I know. But honestly, she hated it."

"It just makes you wonder. If she lied to me about her identity, what else would she lie about? I think I love her still. But I don't think it's a very good idea to."

"That's the thing about love," said Sirius. "It isn't really something you have an idea to do, is it? It happens, whether you wanted it to or not."

"Did you want to fall in love with Hermione?"

Sirius thought about it, and came to the obvious, if rather harsh, conclusion.

"No. She didn't originally want to get involved. She was worried it'd compromise Voldemort's eventual destruction. She was selfish, annoying and obstructive, and I hated her a little bit." Sirius wondered if he'd been unfair. But it was what he'd felt, at the time. "But it wasn't like that, not really. I remembered what it was like. When we had to fight in our second war. We did it, because it was the right thing to do, but we didn't want to."

"I don't want to fight this one. Not really. I don't know how I'd do a second."

"You did. Hermione did. This is my third go around."

"Hopefully we won't die, this time."

"Here's to not dying." Sirius raised an imaginary glass, and Remus smiled.

"Yes. Here's to not dying." He looked at the television again. "Why are you watching this? It's ridiculous. You can't do that on a ship without magic, you just can't."

"Not a clue. Do you want to come to the wedding?"

"When is it?"

"Soon. Issues with my mother. It's a long story."

"It always is, with you and women."

"Oi. I've improved. I don't want anyone other than her."

"And I can't see that I want anyone other than Ginny."

"There we are, then," said Sirius. "I think that means we're happy."

"There's a war on."

"There's never a good time for romance," Sirius replied. "Just got to take things when they come. Hope the good times outweigh the bad, in the end. Avada Voldemort. It's all luck and optimism."

"Never thought I'd see the day Sirius Black was an optimist."

"Trust me. Neither did I." Sirius sighed. "You're right, this programme's ridiculous. I wonder if there's any quiz shows on."


	56. Chapter 56: Luna

**Chapter Fifty Six: Luna**

 _Luna_

 _September 1979, Department of Mysteries_

She'd been here before, Luna had, and it hadn't been the best experience.

Luna had always been a believer in things being what you made of them. Her mother had been very insistent on that, and, in pretending to be her mother for so long, she'd taken the advice even more to heart. She didn't like the pretending. It made her ache.

And there had been some nice bits about that last trip, if she decided to think of it like that. She'd felt like she had friends, that night, for the first time in by that time almost five full years of Hogwarts. She'd not been trailing along behind anyone, or not any more than Neville and Ginny had been, too, and she'd fought just as well as most of the rest of them. She's not made it to the end, no, but she'd been fifteen fighting fully-grown adults, and only Harry and Neville had made it through to the end. They'd all said she'd done well.

But there was no denying that this was the darkest part of the Ministry. Other departments laid down or enforced the laws, but this one seemed to exist on its own. Even the look of the shiny black tile on the walls made Luna shiver, before she'd even made it through the door. And go through the door she must. Because that was what she had determined she was going to do, and Luna was not one to give in.

"Hello," she said, as much to the corridor as to anything else. "Nice to see you again."

The words disappeared without a trace, as she had supposed that they would.

Sirius had died here, or he had been sent to Death. She hadn't believed that when he'd arrived back here, but then, one was prone to applying one's previous knowledge even when it had not been necessary. He'd been dead in her world. They'd mourned him. And Luna had been sad, not because she had known him in particular, but because it had saddened Harry and the others.

But then, it wasn't as if Sirius seemed much affected by that death, so she supposed she shouldn't be sad about it, any longer.

"Come along," she said to herself, and opened the door.

She'd assumed someone would be here to meet her, but that didn't seem to be the case, and Betty hadn't seemed like somebody that appreciated latecomers. Besides, Luna knew the system. Don't close the door, or it all spins. You'll lose your place.

Possibly become locked into this place forever, and that would be where nobody wanted to end up.

"Congratulations," said Betty, once Luna had found the correct door. Luna had been right, then, that it had been a test. "You've been here before. It recognises you."

"Perhaps."

It did.

Betty led her through a warren of corridors, in a direction Luna hadn't been on her previous excursion here. She was glad of that, in a way. The tiles gleamed just as dark here, and the floor too, creating a strange impressing of a never-ending underground world. There were no lights, and yet the corridor was lit, which she supposed was the wonder of magic. That, and a technique designed to intimidate.

"Did you come here before?"

"Never."

"Why not?"

"Because I've had no need to be here, ever before. It's funny, isn't it?"

Oh, Luna liked the pretending as little as Ginny had, except she was better at it than Ginny had been.

Betty carried on, stalking ahead at quite a pace, her dark hair almost absorbing the imaginary light. Luna was certain it was light because that is what she expected it to be. Or perhaps because she was supposed to be there. There was certainly a magic she did not know at play here, and much as she wanted to understand what it was and why, she did not want to appear to curious.

"Here," said Betty, rather brusquely, indicating a door that Luna was certain had appeared at her command. "Go in, please."

It was unlikely to kill her, Luna thought, and so she did.

"It is a very nice office," she said, because it was. The dark tiles here had given way to dark marble, for some strange reason of aesthetic, or perhaps mere preference, and squashy armchairs sat around the wooden desk rather than the hard-backed chairs of elsewhere in the Ministry. And a surprising amount of potted plants. Luna had never had very much luck with potted plants. "I like your cacti."

"Thank you. Take a seat."

Luna chose the blue armchair. It felt like a choice Betty would analyse, but overthinking these things never did you much good, not in the overall scheme of the world, did it?

"I came," she said.

"You did." Betty opened a drawer and pulled out a small, silver ink pot and a quill. She laid them on the desk and took her own chair, the green one, ignoring the quill and ink pot from the moment she laid them down. "Just as I thought you would. You're curious, although you deny it. You're not scared, despite my threats."

"Threats are as threats are," said Luna. "You'll do what you'll do regardless of what I do, I imagine."

"Who do you think me to be?" Betty asked, leaning forwards onto her hands, elbows propped on her knees, fixing Luna with quite a stare.

"I suspect you're who you say you are. I've got no reason to assume otherwise. It isn't as if you've spun me an unbelievable tale. But then, the time to pick people up on their error is in the detail, when they are faking their identity, and you have been rather careful to give me little detail that I can't immediately verify. And it would be rather less clever than you have presented yourself as to have told an illogical story, or at least one that can be proved to be illogical."

"So you've checked."

"I've checked you the same as you have checked me, I'm sure."

"But are you ready to admit where you come from yet?"

Luna carefully examined the runes on the edge of the desk before committing to an answer. They were as she had thought.

"You know."

"I do. The year 2002, after the eventual and final defeat of the one they call Lord Voldemort."

"Exactly."

Betty sat back in her armchair, looking something that could only be described as rather smug.

"Well done."

Luna felt that to be a little bit patronising, and rather unnecessary.

"I like working with clever people," Betty continued. "And you fit all of our criteria, Luna. A job with the Department of Mysteries isn't just something you can apply for. It's a chance you don't often get. That only a tiny handful of people over the course of history get the opportunity. You'll have power you never dreamed of, perhaps more than the Minister for Magic herself."

"I've never felt much like I needed power."

"Which, incidentally," said Betty, "is another reason I am interested in you. We don't choose the types that want it. Let them deal with politics."

"What would I do here?"

"You're warming to it."

"I'm asking questions."

"And you'll get your answers. In time."

Luna decided that a reply to that was not strictly necessary. She waited. If somebody wanted to be cryptic or unhelpful, then that was their decision, wasn't it?

"You're patient."

"It's either sitting here or filing permits upstairs, isn't it? And you were right at our last meeting when you said that it was not particularly riveting work." Luna had come to a decision of some sort. This had been sort of fun when she had not known that Betty, a genuine Unspeakable as it turned out, had any sort of proof. But she had at least something, and Luna did rather want some answers. "I want to know what you know," she said, "and how. Please."

Betty smiled.

"Well," she said. "Where is it you want me to begin?"

"I find at the beginning is usually the best, don't you?"

"The beginning is a subjective term, Luna, when you work with time. Your beginning, after all, has not happened yet."

"So you work with time."

"Indeed." Betty reached into the top of her robes, and pulled out a familiar glint of gold. The Time Turner sat on her hand as she reached her arm out towards Luna; not close enough to touch, but close enough for Luna to have no doubt in what she was seeing. "You've seen one of these before."

"I think my actions were somewhat involved in smashing a large proportion of them. The Ministry later claimed all."

"Do you believe that?"

"I find it prudent never to believe anything the Ministry has to say, not without at least some skepticism."

"Indeed. As far as I understand it, they were in fact all broken on the evening that the six students and the Death Eaters broke into Hogwarts. We don't generally go that far, you see. The Time Turner you see in my hand, it travels back no more than forty-eight hours in a go. And it doesn't go forwards." Betty tucked it back away.

"Hermione's went only six hours back."

"Oh, really?" Betty looked as if this was new information, and Luna was pleased. It was no fun at all to be always on the back foot. "I suppose Croaker won, then."

"Croaker?"

"He wants to further restrict the amount we can travel backwards in time. His proposal is six hours, rather than forty-eight."

"I see. And so he wins."

"It appears so. But that isn't the concern, is it? It isn't even the real question you want to ask."

It was not as if Betty was wrong. Luna sighed.

"No. I want to know how you were able to travel to my original time if your Time Turner is so restricted. Either you have modified it, there is more you are not telling me, or you have stolen Hermione's."

"I have stolen nothing," said Betty. "Not on a technicality. I merely duplicated it."

"Oh?" Luna had learnt, over the years, that asking an outright question sometimes doesn't get you an answer, but making a vague noise in an attempt to encourage them to continue will.

Betty smiled. She knew the tactic.

She pulled a little black box from her pocket.

Neither of them wanted to say anything, so they sat in silence for a moment, each contemplating the other. Luna, for her part, had quite a lot of questions, and, really, it was a case of working out which one would result in answers the easiest. It wasn't that any of them were any less important than the others, just that she knew Betty would not be the easiest to get answers from.

Betty seemed to be analysing Luna. That would get her about as far as it had ever got anyone else, Luna thought. She was rather difficult to read, even if she did say so herself.

"I find you very interesting," said Betty, and Luna felt some kind of victory that it hadn't been her to break the silence. "I don't know what you're going to say or do."

"It's an advantage I'm rather proud of," said Luna. "But as it is I feel my questions are rather predictable. Mostly of the when and the why and the how sort, which is exactly what I would expect you to ask were I in your position and you in mine."

"Perhaps," said Betty.

"If you would care to answer them, then," said Luna, affecting herself a laid-back pose. She had always thought cigarettes a strange habit, but now she saw the point of them. To light one would add to her air of nonchalance.

"The Ministry tracks every instance of time travel," she said, turning the box over in her hand. "So we knew that there had been time travel within the Ministry on the 16th June, 1978, but it didn't trigger any suspicion, at first. There were enough Unspeakables working that day that we didn't question it. True, it was by the lifts on the Atrium floor, and we'd usually caution against people meddling with time in view of the general public, but then, worse things have happened in the Atrium than a few people appearing suddenly. It's when they transform into peacocks or begin to shed scales that you want to investigate."

Betty grimaced. Luna decided that those stories were irrelevant to the main dialogue, as much as she wanted to hear them told.

"But what was strange, stranger than the usual that occurs here, was the Veil. Somebody had been through it. And nobody with access to the Department of Mysteries was dead."

Luna nodded.

"And so you investigated."

"Not much. Because it was decided that the Veil was as the Veil is. We don't know much of it, other than it functions as a portal to the world of the Dead. And a one-way portal at that. So we investigated it, found nothing of note, and moved on. It was some months later that, in a visit to my mother, I discovered something."

"This is all very interesting," said Luna. "And so it is somewhat personal?"

"Isn't it all, in the end?" Betty asked. "If it wasn't when you began, it will be by the end."

"We couldn't help your mother,:

"No."

"We tried."

"I know."

If it were almost anyone else, the exceptions being obvious, Luna would have put her hand out to the other person at the very least. She'd have done something to comfort them, whether they cried or just did the stony-faced look that Betty did. But she didn't, here. This was a job interview of sorts. It would not be appropriate.

"I don't blame you," said Betty. "You tried. But there was something strange about it all. Mum had said a few things, and then I saw you all at the funeral, and then two of my sisters had stories to tell about strange happenings. And then I picked up a magazine, and there's a photograph of the girl called Hermione that my mum was friends with, but she's called Lyra Black now, and she's in a family photograph at the Black wedding."

"So something didn't make sense, I suppose."

"By this point, several things didn't make sense. But only if you knew my Mum."

"And to think that such a nice woman would have been the flaw."

"Yes. Lyra Black doesn't exist, you know."

"There is no law to say that one cannot say she is whatever name she wishes to."

"It is against the spirit of the law. I imagine that Pollux Black would be less than pleased, from what I know of the man."

"But not the letter. I have checked. And, surely, it is Pollux Black's problem in what he chooses to believe. Or whom he chooses to believe, perhaps."

"But this is a diversion," said Betty. She'd lost the stony faced look that she'd had when talking about her mum, and gone back to what Luna was calling her game playing face. It was something that rather gave the impression she found all this an intellectual exercise.

"You duplicated the box. Our time turner, of a sort."

"Yes."

"When?"

"You were all at the Ministry, the day that Bellatrix Lestrange broke out. It's easy enough to break into a house when one has the key to a neighbour and a time-turner."

"I suppose anything is possible. Although I did have more faith in our spellcasting."

"It wasn't exactly easy." Betty put the box down on the desk, some sort of peace offering, maybe. "Did you cast them?"

"Not in their entirety."

"Interesting. There were some I hadn't seen before."

"There were some I hadn't seen before."

"They do not protect the house adequately from below, by the way. If that is something you feel you ought to protect. And I would recommend the Fidelius Charm."

"The Fidelius is not foolproof."

"Neither is what you have at present."

Luna supposed that was the truth. She had decided, some weeks ago, in fact, that she was not wise to trust anything that came out of this woman's mouth as the truth. Trust was a funny thing. And the truth was subjective at best. But then, Luna supposed, you had to work within the boundaries of what you had.

"But to continue," said Betty, "I was able to verify that the time travel near to the Atrium on the 16th June, 1978 was in fact you, coming from a future beyond which we'd ever travelled to. Because we've never been able to travel forwards, before."

"No. So I've been told. You were able to make it work, then?"

"It was easy enough, when you knew what to cast. But it was only able to retain me in the future for a matter of minutes, merely long enough for me to grab sufficient proof that I had been there."

"We have little experience with that sort of thing."

"You've got chance now."

"I do not want to join your Department."

"Why?"

"Because I've seen what you do. You've got the chances to make things better, here, with the power you have. And yet you don't act. I've never been very good at standing by, you see. I'm not anyone with any sort of bravery, I don't think, I was never a Gryffindor, certainly, but I still don't find it easy."

"But who is to say what should be changed?"

Luna stood up.

"I feel that murder is a fairly easy line to start with," she said.

"Your friend killed Lucius Malfoy. Or that is the rumour."

"Rumour, as this Department knows, is easy to spread without even a segment of the truth."

"But even if you were to accept murder, where else is the line drawn?"

"I can draw several."

"I've already said," Betty countered, "that you will be able to do what you wish."

"I don't think there's any way you can stop that," said Luna. "Unless you were to meddle yourself. Reporting me would do no good for that."

"I'll ruin your friends," said Betty.

"No," said Luna. "You won't." She was certain of that. She had no particular training in the art of reading someone's body language, but this was not that of someone who would carry through on that threat. "Why is it that you want me so much?"

"Because otherwise you die," said Betty. "Do you want to hear the prophecy?"

Luna's chest tightened. She knew what she'd seen herself.

 _Hermione_

 _September 1979,_

"What did you think of Rabastan Lestrange? I know his brother is married to dear Bellatrix, but he's certainly a strong prospect, I would go so far as to say. And, my darling, what of Titus Rowle? Admittedly, he does not have the cerebral qualities of some of the others under our consideration, but he's rather attractive, is he not? And he comes with strong recommendation from Christabel Burke, her middle daughter married his elder brother, and they have such wonderful things to say of the family. Very upstanding, as you will no doubt be aware."

Hermione had spent many years hating Walburga Black on the basis of her portrait, and many hours reading books on portrait magic in order to silence the stupid thing, but she was now forced to admit that the real thing was just as horrible and terrifying. And she liked Hermione. The portrait had merely screamed obscenities about her blood status and her hair. The real one was trying to control her life.

"And then we have to consider the timescale we are working to. An engagement at Christmas would be ideal. Our family Christmas party is always the first of the season, of course, you wouldn't know that yet, but last year it did so work well to have Regulus' pledging ceremony within that. Catering for large numbers is frightfully time-consuming, and expensive, although of course we can bear the cost with no concern, but is it indeed the best use of our finances? It may be better to spend on the wedding. And that would be summer, of course."

"Perhaps, but would it not be better to wait?" asked Adeline.

"Wait? Of course not, my dear. If it is the proximity to the birth of the baby you are so worried about, there will be no burden on you, and the birth of our family's heir is of course of such importance that we would never wish to overshadow it. But Lyra here is not to be getting any younger, and we would not wish the more desirable of the wizards to become otherwise engaged, would we, Lyra?"

"I suppose not," Hermione mumbled, with as much enthusiasm as she could. She had a way out of this, that's what she had to remember, and she'd memorised five different spells that would cause minor discomfort to Walburga without ever being traced back to her.

"Oh, but what of Regulus' dear friend, the Selwyn boy? Jasper, is he not? He was so very impressive in his conversation with me. What did you think of him?"

He'd been the least worst, Hermione had decided, but he was still a Death Eater.

"He may prove acceptable," Walburga said. She didn't particularly seem to need or want Hermione's opinion.

But that was fine, because Hermione didn't want or need Walburga's. She was marrying Sirius.

She'd never have believed that a year ago.

And, the way his bloody mother was going, she'd have to marry him soon.

Regulus, thankfully, had come to the same conclusion. They met in secret, pretending to each be elsewhere.

"Adeline wishes for me to interfere," he said. "And I will if it is what becomes necessary, but I am reluctant when I do not know what it would achieve."

"Nothing," Hermione replied, from her place on the windowsill. A habit of Sirius', this sitting in places she'd never been allowed to sit as a child. Regulus must have noticed it, by the way he seemed not to approve but to also be accepting of it. "There's nothing we can do about your mother, except what's been agreed."

She was certain of it.

"We have some time," said Regulus. "It is not as if Mother has even established who she wishes to marry you to, as of yet."

"But not much."

Regulus didn't try to deny that. Hermione looked out the window of the library. It was a view she'd seen so many times; in the months here in summers, in the years Harry had lived here after Voldemort was dead. It hadn't changed much. Some things didn't. Voldemort would always be a menace while he lived, the view over the square of Grimmauld Place would be uninspiring, Walburga Black would be someone she hated.

"We will manage it," he said. "I will not allow you to become married, unless, of course, you wish to."

"How are you coping?" she asked, because she couldn't remember the last time she'd asked him that.

"With marriage? It is as I expected it to be, but I find that I now wish for more. I am trying to love her. To be the man that she deserves."

It wasn't what she'd meant, but there was nothing Hermione could do but talk about that, instead.

"You'll get there," she said. "You and Adeline. You suit each other, I think."

"Let us hope that is the case." Regulus looked at his shoes, his hands loose by his side. "I do not wish to fail her in this. Or in protecting her."

"You won't. We're all going to help."

"The Dark Lord, Voldemort, he was lenient on my failures for a time. The baby, you see, it was news he was happy to hear. I was asked some time ago to ensure that I continued my family. He now wishes for progress to be made against my other orders. And one of those, of course, was that I should murder my brother. If I should fail at that, Sirius would be dead, and I may find myself less than able to protect my wife and child."

"He wants you to carry on the family name. He wouldn't do anything."

Regulus turned to her, the emotion visible on his face, the face that was usually a little like stone.

"Hermione," he said, "I do not think even you believe that to be true. He would end a family, I am certain of it. He did not care for the Black name when he believed me to have betrayed him, in your before. I am sure he would have ended, or allowed the end of, other lines just as easily if they displeased him. He does not care for blood, he cares for power."

There wasn't much Hermione could do to deny that. Instead she dropped from the windowsill and offered him a hug. It was clear that he wasn't a natural hugger, more allowing it to happen to him. But he patted her on the back softly, and it felt like some sort of progress.

"We can do this," she said. "We'll come up with a way to fake Sirius' death, if that's what it takes. Remus can help. And we'll do this. All of us."

Who knew if he believed it, because she didn't know if she did.

It was three long days before Hermione was able to escape the clutches of Walburga Black. She arrived home on the morning of her birthday, having not disclosed this to Walburga. She didn't want the inevitable party that would be thrown, where more so-called good prospects were thrown at her. The worst of them were clearly cruel, the best of them clever, but still with the Dark Mark on their arm.

"Hello," said Luna, from the sofa, almost invisible behind a stack of books. "You look rather rattled."

"Sirius' mother," Hermione said. Luna wrinkled her nose. Clearly, it was the only explanation needed.

"Yes. She was truly horrific the time I met her in person. It is usual to dislike your mother-in-law-to-be," said Luna. "And she does rather push the metaphorical ship out on reasons to dislike her."

"Boat," said Hermione, unsure of why she was picking this particular battle. "The phrase is pushing the boat out. Why do all of you insist on using Muggle metaphors that you don't understand?"

"You have a leaf in your hair," said Luna. "From a horse chestnut tree."

Hermione sighed.

"Where's Sirius?"

"Out. He'll be back in a moment, I expect. He's gone food shopping. He's ever so domesticated these days. But then, I suppose dogs often are."

"Walburga's set a wedding date," said Hermione, removing Ginny's abandoned broomstick from the chair and sitting down. "And there isn't a groom yet, but not because she isn't pressuring me for there to be one. And I don't know what to say. Because I'm not going to marry whoever she picks, but I don't know what she's going to do when I tell her that, either."

"We could hex her," said Luna. "Just a _Silencio_ is risky, I'm sure she knows how to do non-verbal magic. After all, even Crabbe and Goyle managed that in the end of it. But the right hex would prevent her from doing anything at all. Or there's rituals in this book that would do some admittedly rather horrible things to her, but they would also prevent her from passing judgement." She tipped her head to the side, looking at Hermione, and blinked slowly, twice, making Hermione feel under scrutiny. "There is also the option of simply removing your blood connection. It is unlikely she would check at this point, but it would prevent her from compelling you to do anything. Then you wouldn't have to marry Sirius, either.

"Doesn't the head of the household have to remove people?"

"No. There's no actual legal or magical basis for that, you know. It's a construct made entirely by pureblood wizards to keep their women in line. Traditionally, it was the females that kept the secrets of a magical family, as they were guaranteed to have children of the blood, and the men were not." Luna flicked several pages back in her book and waved it at Hermione, although too far away for it to serve any useful basis in proving a point. "A lot of cheating on one another in magical history, there was. It's actually very interesting."

Hermione didn't doubt that it was, but there you were. It wasn't the time for that.

"But of course," said Luna, "you wish to marry Sirius, anyway, don't you?"

"Obviously," said Hermione. "Or I wouldn't be doing it." She wasn't sure what point Luna was making, any more.

"Exactly. Did you know, witches traditionally eschewed spell casting in favour of rituals? They're longer and slower, but there's an accuracy in them that's hard to deny. But wizards preferred the risk of spellcasting, perhaps, and the practice has died out. Because wizards considered themselves above the things witches did. Patriarchy, wasn't it? Isn't that what you called it?"

"Yes," said Hermione, now even less sure what point Luna was making. "What are you reading?"

"Things," said Luna. "I have a new job, by the way."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I'm going to recruit Remus Lupin to take my old one. It isn't like anyone notices if I'm there or not. He could come in after his transformations and have a nice nap on the desk, and I doubt anyone would care."

"Didn't you have a colleague?"

"Oh, she went," said Luna. "She's gone to the Department of Magical Games and Sports, now. They never notice if a new person arrives."

Hermione felt there was something she was missing there, but decided not to pry.

"What's the new job?"

"Not very interesting," said Luna, "but somewhat interesting all the same."

"Is it still at the Ministry?"

"Oh, yes."

"Which Department?"

"I suppose it comes under the Minister's office, ultimately. Paperwork, in the main. There's an awful lot of paperwork for everything at the Ministry. Remus would have his work cut out, if anyone bothered to file it properly. Perhaps I'll bring that up with the Minister. They could do a, what was it you used to do, a workshop? With those big bits of paper." She gestured at the wall.

"Flipchart paper," said Hermione. "Honestly, Luna."

"Yes. Sirius was rather taken with that. Or perhaps he was just already rather taken with you, at the stage that we bought that."

"He'd only just stopped hating me, then."

"And now you are getting married."

"Yes."

"It's funny, isn't it?" said Luna. "All of this, and then, there's that."

Hermione nodded.

"What are you talking about?" Sirius asked, staggering in as the door opened, laden with bags and boxes.

"Oh, you know," said Luna. "Ministry efficiency. The patriarchy. You."

"Good," said Sirius. "Good work. I think. All good things? It isn't usually. Shouldn't get my hopes up." He dropped three boxes onto his foot in an attempt to kiss Hermione hello.

"The patriarchy is obviously a bad thing," said Luna, as if explaining things to a toddler. "As is cucumber. Please do try not to buy any more of the cucumbers, Sirius. Nobody likes to eat them."

"I do," protested Sirius. "Tastes like nothing, and it's nutritious."

"It's a scam," said Luna. "Cucumber and lettuce and celery. They're all scams."

Wherever Hermione went there seemed to be talk of marriage. With Walburga, with Adeline, with Regulus, with Luna. All of them had such different opinions. Walburga had her plans, Regulus and Sirius theirs. Luna didn't have much of a plan, but then, when did she ever? And Adeline seemed to think she didn't want the marriage with some pureblood wizard chosen by Walburga, but Lyra was supposed to not mind too much.

Lyra was a construct of Luna's imagination, mostly, which meant that she didn't care about anything, because she wasn't real.

Hermione wanted to do something important.

"We've got so much to do," she said, as Sirius rendered the room. "Look."

Her hand indicated the mess of papers still stuck to the wall. Five different types of handwriting covered them, Luna's swirls, her own passably-neat writing, and the wonky scrawling of Sirius and Ginny, with Regulus' obviously meticulous italics joining them. Sirius had drawn the Horcruxes, his hand far neater in drawing than in writing. And Remus had contributed, providing a news article about the death of another family and a photograph of James and Lily. It hadn't seemed like much, but Hermione understood why he'd done it. They'd got the how on this wall, hundreds, maybe thousands of words of the how, but they'd not reminded themselves of the why.

"But we've got somewhere," he replied.

"And every time we do it throws up new obstacles," she said, enchanting a quill to fly up and add the notes about the other Sirius' death onto the cleanest bit of paper. "We'll have to go back to the stationers. There isn't enough room."

He sat down on the floor, crossing his legs, looking up at her.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," he said, "but isn't there a gap over there?"

"But that's with Horcruxes," she said, crossly, "and we can't categorise faking murders with Horcruxes, they're not remotely the same thing."

"We can," said Sirius. "It's physically possible. But yes, one's rather not the same as the other. Why do we have to fake my death, though? Remind me. Or is it just I've annoyed you sufficiently now?"

"Regulus needs to kill you, or Voldemort will order someone else to do it," she explained, letting the quill drop to the sofa with a small splatter of ink. "And there may be repercussions for him, he's had this task for some months without success."

"Right. So I'm the sacrificial lamb, except the sacrifice is faked."

"No. The other Sirius."

Sirius raised an eyebrow at that, it disappearing into the hair he so frequently failed to actually brush.

"He'll be pleased when we tell him that, I think. He's not in great shape at this point, let me tell you."

"We're not going to do it. Because he'd probably Avada you. It's surprisingly common," she said, rifling through a pile of books and presenting him with one from one of Luna's stacks, "that people kill themselves during time travel. Something like thirty-seven percent of deaths during time travel are attributed to it."

"Thanks," said Sirius, putting the book aside with barely a glance. "I'll read that later. And remember not to go jumping in front of my past self."

Hermione had stopped listening, almost, having given up on the enchanted quill. She climbed up onto the back of the sofa and began to scribble onto the paper using a biro, her writing growing smaller and smaller to try and squash it into the space. She had to write this down as she thought of it, she just had to. If anything went wrong it could ruin all of it, and that'd be the end of Harry and of them and of Regulus and it all hinged on them. Once again she stood between a magical population and certain death, and once again she wouldn't fail, because she couldn't.

"Hermione," Sirius said. "Hermione."

"Wait," she snapped. "Wait. I have to write this down." She pulled the paper from the wall, grabbing handfuls of it, and threw it onto the floor. A flick of her wand arranged it, and another flick rearranged it, but it still wasn't right. It didn't make sense how it needed to. There was too much of it and it linked, but it didn't link how it was supposed to.

"Hermione," Sirius said, again.

She arranged them by hand, instead, tearing paper up, because actually it wasn't important that Horcruxes remained with Horcruxes but that it went temporally. But that wasn't right either, was it? It should go by workflow, with who was working on which projects, except that was complicated to, and it just didn't work.

Sirius' hands were at her back, and she felt him steer her away from the mess of paper and onto the sofa.

"Leave it," he said. "It's not going to be perfect."

"But if it isn't, we won't know what we're doing!"

"We've not known so far," he said, "and we've done alright. As long as we keep the goal in mind, we'll get there."

"I told Regulus we'd all be fine," she said, and felt the blood pressure rising further. "And I don't know if we will!"

"That's because we can't, definitively," he said, sitting down on the sofa beside her, half cuddling her, half holding her back. "Nobody can. Luna believes in Divination, and she even says it isn't precise."

"Divination's wrong," Hermione said, wanting nothing more than to get back on the floor with the bits of paper and get them the right way around. She knew if he just let her, she'd get it right eventually. There had to be a way to clear it up.

"I'm not denying that," Sirius was saying. "I'm just, you know, this isn't the way to do it, either. The world was never saved with more bits of paper."

"Except it was," said Hermione. "To fail to plan is to plan to fail."

"He was a wizard, allegedly. Not that saying that helps."

"I've got to get married," she said. "Everyone says so."

"Is that what this is about? We don't have to do it, if you don't want to. We can disappear Lyra, I'll get Luna to look up how to remove you from the family, and it's all going to be fine."

"I want to marry you. I love you. But I don't want to do it because we have to."

"Well," said Sirius, sighing. "We can pretend we don't have to. We'll pretend this is just a wedding we want to have, because we're in love, rather than there being this whole backdrop of war."

"I don't even know where we'll live after all of this. Or when. I don't know if we can get back, I don't think Ginny wants to, anyway, and what about Luna? What about us?"

"We'll deal with it when we get there," said Sirius. "It isn't any point dealing with that now. I'll live wherever you do."

"But your friends," she said, aware that she was now crying, and not able to stop it. Sirius reached up to brush the tears away. "You wanted to save them."

"It doesn't mean I have to live their lives with them. They've got one of me. It isn't as simple as another Sirius Black just slotting in to what they've got going on. Remus was one thing. Everyone else is quite another." He flicked something away from his own face, perhaps his hair. "I'm saving them because it's the right thing to do, not because I want them for myself. Or that's what I'm telling myself. Isn't that what you're doing for your friends?"

"Yes," she said. "I don't know if I could go back. But I don't know if I could ignore the opportunity, either."

"Well, then," he said. "We'll decide when we get there. We'll work out some way to fake the other me's death. We'll destroy these Horcruxes."

"We should have a planning meeting," said Hermione, blinking furiously, determined not to cry any further. "Everyone together. I've done some tentative asking, and everyone's around on Saturday."

"As long as you rest, first," he said. "And, fucking hell, stay away from my mother."

"She's arranged some tea tomorrow," said Hermione, trying to sit back up.

"You'll be ill," said Sirius. "Vomiting. Nasty. Wouldn't want Adeline or Narcissa to come down with it. Frankly, wouldn't care if she did, but we can't say that."

Hermione laughed, even if even she could hear the slightly desperate way she did it.

"Giving your mother an imaginary vomiting bug wouldn't even do anything."

"I can post her a real one. Some of Luna's books are very enlightening, you know. Oi, we should write that down." He dropped to the floor, and on a spare piece of paper from a notebook, he scribbled 'avoid getting on wrong side of Luna'. Hermione laughed again as he pinned it to the wall in pride of place.

"Please don't post any viruses to anyone."

"Hexes, then. I can post hexes, it's easy."

Hermione was laughing in spite of herself, at the man with the messy hair, crouched on the floor fashioning an envelope out of discarded paper, pretending to seal within it comical jinxes, just to make her feel better.

"See?"

"I think we should just do it," she said.

"Do what?"

"Get married. If you still want to."

"Of course I do."

"The longer we leave it, the further into her plans your mother will get."

Sirius raised one eyebrow.

"You want to get married quicker so as not to inconvenience my mother?"

"No. You know exactly what I mean, Sirius Black."

He looked as if he wanted to laugh, but was thinking better of it. Instead, he pulled her towards him, onto the floor, forcing her to sit next to him again, and relax, slightly. It did feel better, this way. Hermione had never been the type of women who wanted to be swept off her feet. She didn't need looking after.

She said that.

"You do," said Sirius in response. "Everyone does."

Hermione didn't really have much to argue with, there. Instead she leant in and kissed him, and there was something very right about that, too.

"How did we end up here?" she asked.

"Excuse me," he said. "But there was a point when witches were falling over themselves to be with Sirius Black."

"And now you're in hiding."

"And I'd have picked you anyway. Even with all the witches in the world."

"Let's do it, then. We'll just pick a day next week, and Luna can marry us, she'll know how to do it, and we'll get married."

"And you'll be safe from my mother."

"And I'll be married to the man I love. I can handle your mother without your help, thank you very much."

"Nobody can handle my mother."

"Luna suggested several rather dark sounding hexes."

"I'm perfectly willing to try that."

"Please don't. We're supposed to be better than them."

"I know a story," he said, wrapping his arms around her even tighter, reaching his hand up to stroke her hair, "about a witch who locked an Animagus into a jar when she annoyed her."

"She was an illegal Animagus," said Hermione, batting his hand away, "and she was spying on me, thank you very much."

"And do I care?" asked Sirius. "Not in the slightest. I'm a little bit scared of you, yes, but I love you."

"I love you too," she said. "And I'd pick you over all the wizards in the world, for what that's worth."

"It's worth an awful lot," said Sirius. He snuggled himself into her shoulder. "Fuck it. Let's get married tomorrow. I'll owl Regulus now."

"Tomorrow? I haven't got anything to wear. And Ginny and Luna and Regulus will be at work!"

"Saturday, then. And it isn't about anything except us, remember. It's just because I love you."


	57. Chapter 57: One Wedding

**Bit shorter than usual, but contains a bit of fourth wall breaking from Luna, brotherly bonding, and one wedding. Thanks to my beta Rachael, as usual. She's great :)**

 **Chapter Fifty Seven: One Wedding**

 _Sirius_

 _September 1979, Saltburn by Sea_

If there was one thing in the whole of this that had not been the plan, it was this.

He tugged at the sleeve of the smart shirt that Regulus had made him wear, absolutely and entirely against his will. His brother had tried to persuade him into dress robes. Dress robes.

Sirius had managed to refuse that, at least. Hermione had never seen him in dress robes. She'd only occasionally seen him in wizarding clothing, even. Or anything resembling something smart. And why would she want to marry someone who didn't look like the Sirius she'd apparently fallen in love with?

Fucked if he knew why she had fallen in love with him, but she had.

"It is not about that," said Regulus, tersely, as he adjusted his own, obviously flawless, clothes. Whether it was that Sirius wasn't wearing dress robes that had his back up, or that Regulus was wearing trousers and a shirt himself, Sirius didn't know. Or just the general absurdity of a pureblood boy marrying a Muggleborn girl. "It is about you presenting your best selves to one another, as you promise yourselves for life."

"This is about as good as I manage," said Sirius, indicating himself just as he noticed a small inkstain on the sleeve of the shirt. "See. Best self."

"Unfortunately," said Regulus, trying now to hide a smile, Sirius was sure, "that, I can certainly believe."

Maybe he should brush his hair.

"Why did I ask you to be here, again?" he asked.

Regulus raised one eyebrow. Even his eyebrows were neat and tidy.

"Because I am your brother."

"Yeah. You are." Were they at the teasing stage yet? "Why'd you agree?"

"Because you are my brother."

"Fuck knows why."

"Genes," said Regulus. "Having been born to the same line. Luck, when it comes down to it. It is luck that we were born to the same mother."

"You really believe that?"

"I am becoming more convinced of it."

It wasn't the conversation most people had, Sirius supposed, on the day of their wedding. But who wouldn't grasp the opportunity to see if their brother had become less of a raging blood purist arsehole?

"Why?"

"I see Hermione," he said, slowly, "and I see the person I knew as Lyra. And when she was Lyra, I accepted that she was somebody worth knowing. And now, she is not, she is a Mudblood, and yet I still see her as a friend. It is complicated, or it is to me. Perhaps it is not to you."

"No," said Sirius. "It isn't to me. It never has been. I don't think about her blood status."

"And you do not judge me for this."

"I do. I want to hex you, truth be told, for being such a git as to think my wife-to-be's blood status is complicated. Don't call her a fucking Mudblood, by the way."

"I am sorry. I try."

"Yes. You're trying. And it's about the only thing that's stopping me hexing you with a painful case of warts on your balls, so keep at it."

"I do not know a curse for that."

"I do."

"Yes, I suppose that you would."

Regulus had resorted to pacing the room, as he always had done as a child when he was nervous. He stopped at this point.

"I do not think it matters," he said, slowly, making deliberate eye contact with Sirius. "Hermione and you love one another. That is the point of marriage, is it not? Do you think that you are doing the right thing?"

"Of course. Whether she thinks the same, I don't know."

"She does. And I am content that you are making the right choice for you, Sirius."

"Well," said Sirius, "I still reserve the right to use that curse if you're a dick."

But brotherly teasing was soon forgotten. He was supposed to be getting married.

"You're going to be fine," said Remus, wandering in. A last minute invitation, because of Ginny, yes, but also because it had felt like the right thing to do. He'd got the message about not wearing dress robes, but then, Sirius wasn't sure if Remus owned a pair that fitted at this moment in time. "It's not all going to explode if you walk in there."

"That sounds like something someone who's rigged the place with fireworks would say."

"It isn't. I've not done what you wanted to do to James' wedding, if that's what you're getting at."

"I was a dick at nineteen. Who'd want that to happen at their wedding?"

"Just go in," said Remus, with a smile. "But you, probably. Secretly."

Sirius followed his advice.

Hermione was there already, clustered with Ginny and Luna, and she was beautiful. Utterly, completely, beautiful. Regulus had been wrong; she wasn't wearing dress robes. She wore a dress of gold, simple and falling to the floor, and it was perfect. Everything about her was.

His bride. Fucking hell, he, Sirius Black, refuser of all things like this, was going to marry someone. And not even someone. Hermione.

"Sirius," she said. "Sirius."

He'd never heard anyone say his name like that before, he didn't think.

How, exactly, had he gotten her to love him?

Regulus prodded him hard in the ribs, and Sirius let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding.

"It is supposed to be a wedding," said Regulus. "That means you must stop staring so at your bride."

"Why?" He didn't really see why he did. His wedding. His rules. And hers.

"Because you are required to also speak."

"Balls."

"Not words such as those." Twice in one day, he'd almost got Regulus to smile. Had to be some sort of record, that did. And he needed to remember to prank or hex or lightly murder Ginny later, somehow, because whatever she was laughing at wasn't fucking funny.

Well, actually, he thought, it was.

A year ago, the idea that Hermione would so much as look at him was laughable. That his brother would once again stand at his side. That Sirius would be getting married, to Hermione, of all people, and that he would be feeling like this about it?

A year ago, he'd have laughed.

"Are you ready?" Luna asked. She'd woven flowers into her hair, and there was probably some sort of extensive symbolism to that. He'd ask her, later. But for now, he nodded. He was as ready as he'd ever be for marriage.

"I stand before you all to celebrate the union of two faithful souls," Luna began. "Magic can bind as it can tear apart. Magic can be beautiful as it can be cruel. We have faced much cruel magic, those of us here, and we must not forget that which is beautiful. Must we not? I am of that opinion, certainly."

She looked around, as if she was trying to remember this moment forever.

"We have two souls before us today. The blood of the magical gift runs freely in both of them, except it is more than that. The blood is not what matters. It is the aim. It is the intent. It is the goals they set within themselves, and how they measure up."

Hermione looked like she might cry, and Sirius, if he was honest with himself, was having to blink a little bit more than he usually would.

"We have Sirius Orion Black. We have Hermione Jean Granger, otherwise known as Lyra Black. Where they come from is not what matters to us. What matters is where they grow to be."

She took out her wand.

"Sirius Black. You are supported by your brother, Regulus Black."

Sirius nodded. Regulus stood tall, as if this were his own wedding. Sirius had not been able to support him, there.

"Hermione Granger. You are supported by your sister-in-word, if not in blood. Ginevra Weasley, also known as Philomena Prewett."

Luna waved her wand in the air, describing a circle with the tip of it, collecting them together into an orb of shimmering gold. The wedding ritual was not the usual pureblood one, he'd made sure of that. Too many promises, too many restrictions. Too much focus on the lineage and blood she didn't have, and he wished he didn't.

"I ask you now to stand in support, as the two souls bind themselves. Some describe this as becoming a single soul, split into two bodies, combining the best of each of them. It is not. No man or woman ought split their soul."

Indeed, Sirius thought.

"I ask you to stand up to be married."

They stepped forwards.

He took her hand and squeezed it, and she squeezed back.

"Still want to do it?" he asked.

"Don't," she said. "Don't ruin it with self-doubt."

So he turned to face Luna.

"Sirius," she said, a vague smile on her face as she held out her wand. "You promise here, to love her and to have her forever, don't you?"

Luna was right, this was where he had to say something. It was usual to recite a set of words here that others had used before them. Family words, perhaps, or ones from the family they were marrying into. But Hermione's family had one, and Sirius', well, this wasn't a Black wedding. And he didn't want to pour his heart out, either.

So he'd settled for simple.

"I promise," he said, "to love you. To have you forever. To stay with you, through everything that might come, through time and space, through any war we have to fight. And at the end of it all, too."

"Do you, Sirius Orion," Luna asked, "take Hermione Jean to become your bonded wife?"

"Yes," he said, and there wasn't a shred of doubt in his mind that this was exactly the right thing for him to do. "Yes. I do."

She smiled, and squeezed his hand once more. Sirius bounced a little on the balls of his feet, unintentionally.

"Hermione," said Luna, "you promise here, to love him and to have him forever, do you not?"

She looked at him with a look he'd never quite seen before, but he knew it was a good thing.

"This wasn't the plan," she said, "but I don't think I want it any other way. I love you."

It wasn't his turn to speak, but he did anyway.

"I love you too," he said, and he really did. More than he'd ever imagined he could.

"Do you, Hermione Jean, take Sirius Orion to be your bonded husband?"

"I do, yes, of course."

"Regulus," prompted Luna, and he stepped forwards. Sirius paid little attention.

"I pronounce you bonded for life," said Luna, tapping their joined hands with her wand.

And that was it. Sirius Black was _married_.

"You're going to have to dance," said Ginny, sidling up to him with a bottle of butter beer in her hand. "It's traditional."

"So is lopping the heads off house elves too old to clean," said Sirius, "and you won't find anyone here arguing we should continue that tradition." He made a mental note, which he realised was one of Hermione's phrases, to check Regulus' views on house elf beheading after this wedding. He might argue for that tradition. "But Regulus is rather attached to Kreacher," he mused.

"What?" asked Ginny. "I know you always hated him, but…"

"No," said Sirius. "Kreacher can live."

"Very gracious."

"There's a tradition," said Luna, coming up to join them, "that kings of old would pardon a prisoner on their wedding day, or allow their wife to do so. A wedding gift, if a very funny one." She paused, sipping her drink. "Or perhaps that was a story. The line is often blurred. We could be a story, for all that we know."

"You could apply that logic to anything," Ginny grumbled. "Bloody hell, do you remember how weird it was when we found out they were talking about us in History of Magic? That people were studying us?"

"Yes," said Luna. "That was indeed rather surreal, wasn't it?"

"I'm surprised Binns ventured away from goblin rebellions and giant wars," said Sirius.

"He didn't. Minerva suggested he leave. Or fired him. Actually, I never asked what happened to him. There was a classroom move when the new teacher was appointed, perhaps she just never told him and he lectured to an empty classroom for years."

"I suspect that," said Luna, cheerfully. "Why upset him if you don't have to?"

"You'd think he'd notice something," said Sirius. "But then he didn't notice when Peter and I set off all those fireworks by accident and set fire to the entire third row."

"See," said Luna.

It was twenty minutes later that Sirius realised he'd told a story about Peter without a reflexive thought of killing him.

It was progress of a sort, he supposed. He was growing up. Luna had once told him he had effectively been emotionally stunted by Azkaban. And Remus had, too, though Remus had shouted at him several times before Sirius had allowed the words to sink in, and he'd been less airy about it than Luna.

There was music playing in the background, something he didn't recognise but was clearly from their current era. His friends, the confusion of them that there was, scattered around the room. Luna sat on the sofa, talking animatedly to Regulus and Remus, neither of whom looked awkward or like they wanted to run away and both of whom even appeared interested in what she had to say. Hermione and Ginny were giggling in the corner by the door. And Sirius, he was happy.

It wasn't the wedding Regulus had held, or the wedding Sirius would have had in his place. This wasn't the formal rooms of number 12, Grimmauld Place, all high ceilings, fancy furniture and opulent decor. There were no house-elves wending their way through the crowds offering canapés from silver platters, and no impeccably dressed purebloods discussing politics and gossip. There wasn't a single tiara or heirloom necklace in sight, and only one family ring on Regulus' finger.

No, here there were just friends, and a faded floral sofa, and a carpet that had seen better days, and walls with parchment and flipchart paper and those little yellow sticky squares all over them, hiding the dated wallpaper underneath. And also hiding the hole he and Ginny had made in one of the walls due to a mishap with a Beater's bat and a pepper mill, but Hermione never needed to know about that.

Maybe a good marriage didn't keep secrets, James and Lily never had, but it wasn't a secret so much as an omission of something unavoidably annoying for Hermione.

This wasn't Grimmauld Place, or James and Lily's place, it was their house. It was home.

"Care for a dance?" he asked, deciding that the dancing thing was a tradition he was willing to face. His wife, that would never get old, his wife turned around to face him.

"Of course," she said. "Can you dance?"

"Can I dance?" he repeated, furrowing his eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion. "Regulus, can I dance?"

"Sirius was the champion of a dancing competition for four years in a row," said Regulus. "Mother was most proud."

"Last time she was proud of me," said Sirius.

"There was also," Regulus continued, "the Inter-Wizard Junior Chess Championship, which I believe was the year you left the dancing world. And you would have continued, except Narcissa was too old by then to dance in your category, and you refused to be partnered with any of the options presented to you."

"They were all blood purist idiots."

"I do think Amelia Bones would take objection to that, and rightfully so." Regulus paused as if for dramatic effect. "And, I suppose it had nothing to do with the crush you had at the time on one Alice Brown."

Hermione wasn't being very helpful here, turning a funny shade of pink with her attempts not to laugh.

"You did walk right into that one," she said. "You gave him the opportunity to tell that story."

"Forgive me if I'm not used to this brotherly teasing thing."

"Ginny will give you tips, if you like."

"Ginny," said Ginny, "is going to make you dance now, whether you like it or not."

He took Hermione by the hand, knowing that Ginny generally meant her threats, and led her into the centre of the living room. Ginny flicked her wand at the radio, and a song he did recognise came on, a wizarding one by a band whose name he'd forgotten, but their lead singer had been called Morven, and both he and Peter had had a crush on her for most of sixth year.

"Ready?" he asked. "Do you like the song? I'll change it if you don't."

"Sirius," she said. "I'll dance to anything with you."

So they did. They didn't have much room, Sirius had no excuse to show off some of his more obscure steps that he partially remembered, but it was enough. He held Hermione close as they danced, swishing from side to side and around in circles until the room blurred into a mess of colours and all that seemed to be visible was her.

Somewhere near the beginning of the second verse, he realised Ginny and Remus had joined them, dancing alongside with Ginny's head on Remus' shoulder, looking happy.

"Allow me to escort you?" Sirius heard Regulus speak as he held out his hand to Luna, who accepted, and soon the six of them were all dancing. And somehow it was beautiful.

By the evening they had relocated outside. Someone, and Sirius suspected Luna, had decorated the garden with lights and flowers, the whole thing sparkling softly in the dark of the September evening. Ginny, most likely, had laced the garden with warming spells, and Remus, tasked with food, had rather sensibly in Sirius' opinion been to buy chips from the chippy up the road. Even James and Lily's wedding had been catered, but Sirius didn't care. This was perfect.

"This is so weird," said Ginny, sitting on a deckchair conjured for the wedding. "I was supposed to get married before you."

"I know. You don't mind, do you?"

"Course not. Best wedding ever, I'd say. Still, it's weird. Not as weird as going to James and Lily's, but weird."

"You knew their fate by then." Remus spoke from his own deckchair, which he seemed to have partially sunk into.

"Yeah. Like I said, it was weird."

"We need to do some planning," said Hermione, from her own seat. It was closer to a throne, and nobody was taking credit for it. "It isn't going to be their fate, but we've got a lot to do yet.

"Where is it that we are to start?" asked Regulus.

"Anywhere," said Ginny. "So long as it ends with Voldemort's timely demise."

"At the beginning," suggested Luna, digging around in her chips.

"I believe that somebody ought to be in charge," Regulus said.

"We're a democracy," said Ginny. "We established that ages ago."

"A democracy doesn't mean there isn't somebody in charge," said Hermione. "It just means that everyone has equal say. And the person in charge makes sure the will of the group happens. It's a term coined in Ancient Greece, but it's been adopted by most nations, wizarding and Muggle. There was a point in the early 20th century where the tide seemed to be going away from democracy, but…" she tailed off, with a self-aware smile, "but this is a wedding, not a history lesson."

"It's a democracy," said Sirius. "Except Luna and Hermione have more of a say."

"Why?" asked Regulus. "A democracy is a state of everyone being able to say their piece, is it not?"

"We're not as bright," says Ginny, cheerily.

"Technically," said Sirius, "I'm a genius. My parents did, in fact, have me tested."

"I do not understand," said Regulus. "But perhaps I am not supposed to."

"Probably not," Ginny admitted. "I don't, always."

"Hermione and Luna are the planners," said Sirius. "They know what they're going to do before they do it, and they've got a reasonable idea of what might happen. Ginny and I sort of dart in and then flail around a bit and hope it all works out. So their plans are more likely to work, because they don't just think 'hey, let's go blow up a Horcrux'. They think about whether Voldemort can tell, for example. About good spells. About appropriate safety charms. And as, well, everyone in this room can attest, I almost never think about safety charms."

Hermione stifled a laugh, but Regulus looked less than convinced.

"We've got a Quidditch ball analogy," Sirius continued.

"Yeah," said Ginny. "So Hermione's the Quaffle. Chasers are glamorous, everyone's watching the Quaffle. It does most the real work, everyone's always watching it, it usually decides the game in a real, professional league game. It's the one you'd bet on, anyway. It's got the most set plays."

"And Ginny and I are the Bludgers," said Sirius. "We sometimes change something, but it can be for the wrong side just as much as the right side, and, honestly, we don't really plan it. It just sort of happens. Bludgers are chaotic."

"What am I?" Luna asked, looking vaguely interested as she adjusted the ridiculous floral thing she had in her hair.

"Snitch," said Ginny. "Nobody sees you, and then, bang. You're in the game, and you're influential."

Regulus laughed.

"And what does that make me?" he asked. "And him?" He indicated Remus, sitting quietly in the corner.

"Dunno. There's only four balls."

"My opinion," said Remus, "is that we should stop chopsing and start planning. If we're going to manage anything at all, that is."

"It's a wedding," Hermione repeated. "Even I don't want to plan tonight."

"Alright," said Ginny. "Tomorrow. Hangovers allowing."

Tomorrow, Sirius thought, tomorrow. He'd have to deal with the war tomorrow, with the fact that Voldemort was coming for his friends. But tonight he didn't have to.


	58. Chapter 58: Tomorrow

**Chapter Fifty-Eight: Tomorrow**

 _Remus_

 _October 1979, The Crossing, Lincolnshire_

"You're avoiding Peter," said James. "Why are you avoiding Peter?"

"I'm not." Remus set down the tray of potions he'd carried into the living room. The day after the full moon, that was the day James chose for an interrogation. James didn't even live here. He should go fucking home if he wasn't going to be any help.

"Remus," said James, with an air of despair. "Your eyebrows twitch when you lie. Your eyebrows have always twitched when you lie. James knows."

"James," sighed Remus, lowering himself onto the sofa with no small amount of pain, "should stop referring to himself in the third person."

"James should not. James thinks this is the only way to live. And, besides, James is right, you're lying."

Remus wasn't lying. Remus wasn't avoiding Peter. He'd spent all of last night with Peter, admittedly not in a humanoid form, but with Peter nonetheless. And he wasn't avoiding him, anyway, he was just doing his best not to have to talk to Peter.

"Go away, James."

"Shan't. James Potter doesn't go away on command."

"Yes. We're aware. I've been trying to get you to for the last, oh, eight or nine years."

"And, I've been telling you for the last eight or nine years, we like you, and we won't go away." James nodded towards the potions. "And they're for drinking, not looking at. Come on, Moony. Bottom's up."

Remus, reluctantly, unstoppered three of the bottles and drank them down. It didn't make him feel much better.

"Now, tell me why you're avoiding Peter."

Remus closed his eyes, hoping James would buy the exhausted werewolf excuse for his non-response. He wasn't avoiding Peter, but if he was, it was because he didn't have much of a clue what to say to him. Philomena, Ginny, had told him enough, and Sirius, the other Sirius, had given more details, and it was enough for him to know that Peter had done all of that. Not this Peter, no. But this Peter still might.

Obviously, Remus understood what they'd said. That going after Peter, that shunning him for something he hadn't yet done, that'd drive him away from the Marauders and the Order. That it would make him more likely to decide to join Voldemort. But it was easy to say all of that. It was a lot harder to do it.

"I can't take his whining about Sirius' mess any more."

Remus opened his eyes enough to see James tip his head onto one side. James should have been the dog, Remus thought sometimes. A spaniel.

"Oh, really? Because Peter's not the one that whines about Sirius' mess. That's you."

"Peter does sometimes."

"It isn't the reason. So tell me, before I drag him into here and, I don't know, charm you both to the sofa until you deal with it." James brandished his wand in an attempt to look serious.

"Don't set fire to the sofa again," said Remus.

"I haven't lit any fires accidentally since sixth year, which you know well. Out with it, Lupin."

Well, Remus was going to have to come up with a convincing lie, because he couldn't tell James any of the truth. Not just because he's sworn not to, but because James would be the absolute worst person to tell, after this Sirius. It would end in certain disaster.

Remus sighed, and willed his eyebrows to stay still, just in case James had a point about that.

"I don't know," he began. "It isn't even Peter's fault. He made a comment last week, about Phil and I, and it made me think about some things." James was a romantic at heart, this would make sense to him. "Phil and I, we're together, but we're both in the Order. Like you and Lily. Like Peter and Marlene were, before she died. And what if one of us dies? I don't want to rush into anything, but I want her to know how I feel. But I can't marry her. I don't have any prospects. I don't have much of anything, and she's clever, and funny, and has a job, and she's perfect, James. And what if this is just a war thing? Or if one of us dies? I don't know how I feel."

James had bought it.

"Lily and I got married because it was right for us," he said. "And you don't have to marry her. But do you think she'd be in this with you if she didn't want to be? If she cared about any of that?"

"I don't know."

"I do. She wouldn't. She'd be running a fucking mile, because, let's face it, the vast majority of girls would. Not that they should, but, you know, realities."

"James Potter, eternal optimist, facing the reality of life."

"It's wartime, isn't it? Got to."

"Yeah, I suppose."

"So, back to you and Phil. She loves you. Doesn't she owl you like six times a day?"

"No. You don't live here, how do you know?"

"James knows all, Moony."

"Stop. Stop talking about yourself like that. This is important."

It was an important bloody lie.

And yet, Remus realised he did actually want to know what James thought of his maybe not quite so fake problem.

"Sorry. You've got a point." James flopped backwards into the sofa he was sat on, making himself comfortable. "I can't tell you what to do, Remus. Only you and Phil can decide that. But she loves you, and, I dunno, maybe marriage is what you want. Maybe you just need to make sure she knows you love her. Some big gesture, maybe."

"When did those ever go well for you?"

"Well, never. But Philomena isn't Lily. All I'm saying is, you love her, so tell her that. Don't rush into anything you're not sure about. Pretend there isn't a war. What would you do?"

"What about you? Would you have got married, without the war?"

"Course. I've been in love with Lily as long as I can remember. But this isn't about me."

Remus paused, considering it.

"Well," he began. "I'd want to be going out with her. But it's only been six months, hasn't it? What's normal for six months into a relationship?"

"No idea," said James. "Probably not thoughts of marriage, if I'm honest."

"Two of her friends got married, recently. They've only been together slightly longer than we have."

"That's them. As I keep saying, don't worry about other people's relationships. It isn't about that."

"No, I suppose not."

"I'd better go. Talk to Peter, yeah? Whatever he said, I doubt he wanted to upset you. And, I don't know, send Phil a love letter or something."

"Okay."

Remus shifted himself around on the sofa as James left, in an attempt to feel more comfortable. Nothing worked, this time of the month. It was futile. Maybe like his attempts to be in a relationship with essentially the best girl he'd ever met.

Of course, the other bit about all of this was that she might disappear one day. Another thing he couldn't tell James, or anyone.

And she'd lied to him.

He understood that more than he had, now. He knew why she'd done it, anyway. And he'd realised, probably the most importantly, that he might have done the same in her position. It didn't make it right, no, but it made it justifiable.

Remus closed his eyes. He'd try and get some sleep, maybe. Deal with everything, with Phil and Peter and the whole mess of a war, later when his body didn't hurt so bloody much.

Which might have worked had he not been interrupted by Peter.

"How're you feeling?" he asked, lowering himself into James' recently vacated seat. "Prongs left?"

"Yeah."

Peter raised one eyebrow.

"That only answers my last question."

"Fine. Feel like my body's made of lead and someone's broken it into pieces, but, that's today."

"It's never good, is it?"

"No."

It never bloody was. Unemployed sodding werewolf, he was.

He'd said that out loud, by Peter's pitying look.

"You don't mean any the less to us."

No, Remus believed that Peter was telling the truth there, despite what another him would do in two years time. Peter had been Remus' very first friend. He'd been the first one to say that it didn't matter when they'd discussed the werewolf thing. He'd told Snape to fuck off once, over it, and Peter had always been terrified of Snape. Peter had spent six hours in the library doing Remus' homework after a particularly bad moon. Peter had done enough for all of them, really.

"Sorry. You know how I get, today."

"Yeah. We do."

"And sorry if I've been weird around you. I'm trying to work out some things, at the moment."

"Anything I can help with?"

"I dunno." He'd just gone through it all with James, but he could try Peter too, he supposed.

Peter's advice wasn't significantly different.

"But it's up to you, isn't it," he finished. "I can tell you what I'd do, but I'm not you."

Remus wondered if he should ask Sirius for a third opinion.

Sirius was terrible with girls. His Sirius, not the one that had gotten married to Hermione.

"Thanks, Pete."

"No problem. Happy to help."

It didn't solve his actual problem, did it, the real reason he'd been avoiding Peter.

"What're we going to do if the war continues?"

Peter looked startled.

"You and Phil?" he asked.

"No. Yes. All of us. Me and Phil, and you, and Sirius, James, Lily, Dorcas, Caradoc, everyone. We're all existing day by day. We're hanging on because we're together. Because we're fighting, because that's the most important thing we think we can do. Because we trust each other. What if any of that breaks down?"

"It won't," said Peter. "It can't."

"Why can't it?"

"Because we'll die. If we stop fighting, they'll come and get us. Our cards are marked, if you want to use that metaphor. V - Voldemort won't forget. We don't have a way out except to fight."

"Flee to France, or, I don't know, Vietnam. Switch sides." Remus' hand shook. It wasn't a good idea to explore this. It was a stupid idea to even bring this up, this would be how he'd get marked a spy or a traitor.

"Vietnam, Remus? Have you ever been?"

"No."

"And you'd never switch sides. None of us would."

But he would, Remus thought. He had, in a different timeline now to this one, yes, but not one so substantially different.

"I don't think so, no, but, what if there was a traitor?"

Peter went white.

"If you think there is, you need to talk to Moody, not me. I'm not an expert on that sort of thing." His voice shook, a little, but Remus was at least ninety percent certain that was worry, that there was danger in their ranks, not guilt. He knew Peter's guilty face. He'd probably thought he knew Peter's guilty face before.

"Moody sees a traitor in his own shadow."

"Dorcas, then. Or Dumbledore."

Remus sighed. "I don't think there is. I just, you know, I worry."

"You're always a pessimist after the full moon."

"Realist, Peter."

"Look. Calm down. We're all in this together, yeah? Nobody's betraying anyone. We're going to fight the Death Eaters, and we're going to win."

"What if we don't? What if we die?"

"Then we die," said Peter. "It's like Phil said, isn't it? What's the point in living if we're only going to live in fear? Well, I think she said fear and a cesspit of shit, actually. She doesn't moderate her language, does she?"

Remus laughed.

"No. She doesn't." It wasn't something to laugh about. "I love her, Peter. I don't know what I'd do without her."

It was bloody insensitive, he realised, that. Peter's face told him everything he needed to know about exactly what he'd said wrong.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't think."

"No," said Peter, tersely. "You didn't." He softened. "But that's another reason, isn't it? Marlene died. It shouldn't be in vain. It shouldn't happen to anyone else."

"No." With considerable effort, Remus raised himself from his pit of sofa and offered Peter a hug. "You're keeping fighting, that's something. It's impressive. After everything."

"It's the only way," said Peter. "Or I think so."

Remus allowed himself an hour's nap, until he thought Ginny would have finished teaching for the day. Then, he hauled himself back up, to the fireplace, and half-fell through the Floo to her office. If she was surprised by his tumble onto the rug, covered in soot and spluttering, she didn't show it.

"Didn't expect you, today," was all she said.

"I just wanted to say I love you," he said, still on the floor, because he didn't have enough energy left to stand upright. "I love you."

"I love you too," she said, "but don't you need to rest?"

"Voldemort doesn't."

Ginny smiled.

"Even Voldemort sleeps."

"But I love you."

"You're addled on pain potions, aren't you?"

"No." Remus' head was swimming quite a bit. He'd taken some while talking to James, some before his nap, and one before coming here. "Maybe. But I still love you."

"I don't doubt it. Come on, I'm getting you to bed."

"Yes. Bed." He started to unbutton his trousers, because, for some reason, that seemed like what one should do when their girlfriend was taking them to bed.

"Not for that," she said, stepping out from behind her desk. "You're in no state."

"Oh. Not even on your desk? I'd like to."

"Another day. Seriously, you can barely stand. You need sleep."

He awoke in her bed, something they'd not done at Hogwarts. He was fairly sure it violated some kind of rules. He didn't care.

"You're looking better," she said. "Told you that you needed sleep."

"I love you," he said. It felt like what he needed to say. To make sure she knew it wasn't some kind of effect of the pain potions he'd taken, but a real, true, expression of how he felt.

"I love you too."

Her hands reached up around his back and his neck, pulling him towards her. Their lips met, gently at first and then crushing together, as if all that they were trying to do was meld themselves into one.

"I love you," he said, pulling himself away, even though he didn't want to. "I love you, and it's too soon to talk about marriage, but I just want you to know, this isn't something I'm just doing because there's a war. I love you, and I don't want to marry you yet, but one day, I'm going to ask. And I'm going to try not to care about my issues, and how you're far more than I deserve. Because I love you."

"Remus," she said, caressing the back of his neck. "I love you too. And, I don't want to marry you yet, either, but I think I'll say yes in the future, you know."

"How about that desk shag?"

"Bloody hell, no," she said. "Here. Now. The desk's too far away."

 _Regulus_

 _October 1979, Hambleton Hall_

Regulus had desired to never again stand in front of Lord Voldemort. He distinctly remembered promising to never do so again. Yet, here he was, once again in the halls of the Lestrange family home, walking towards the Dark Lord's presence. And yes, this project that he had become involved in was bigger than his own desires, far bigger, but that did not mean that he had to like all of the path he was to walk.

He must banish those thoughts. He must wear an open face and keep a clean mind. His own life depended on it, and so did that of many others, and Regulus had his loyalty. He would not let them down.

And so he walked into the ballroom of Bellatrix's house with his mask on, his face lowered, and his mind free of any thoughts of rebellion. Even the small rebellion of his mask was somewhat uncomfortable.

"My Lord," he said, kneeling at the Lord's feet. "I am at your service." Regulus felt the familiar nudge of Legilimency.

The Dark Lord did not look pleased, but that was his right. Regulus was almost late, and his Lord had every right to expect nothing but devotion from his followers. They were lucky to be permitted within his presence. The Dark Lord rewarded his best, his most loyal, and he knew how best to reward them. He was powerful and he was merciful. He knew what was right.

"You are very nearly late," said the Dark Lord.

"I am sorry, my Lord."

"As you should be. Assume your place."

Regulus retreated into the shadows. It would not do to look as if he was hiding anything. He must appear as he always had to the Dark Lord.

Three more Death Eaters scuttled in after Regulus' arrival; Mulciber, Avery, and Snape. It was strange, was it not, that Mulciber was the first to arrive of the three and the one that came closest to a punishment. He was not in their Lord's good graces, perhaps. He did often make mistakes, did he not?

The Dark Lord's eyes swept the assembled Death Eaters periodically, and it was only as he spoke to Snape that Regulus felt safe to think a thought of his own. And it was not of his own, maybe. It was a joke of Sirius' that Regulus had not understood until Ginny had explained it to him, and he did not still feel was in good taste.

It was not safe to think thoughts of one's own here.

"My followers," said the Dark Lord, sweeping as he customarily did around the inside of the circle they formed around him. "My Death Eaters. My loyal friends. And what is the reason I bring you here today, I ask you? Urgency, that is the reason. The world does not stop to allow us time to gather our thoughts. The Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix do not give us space to plan our actions. They seek to strike before us, to bring us down, to turn wizarding society into a mockery of what it should be. But we know the truth of what needs to be done. Even we are sometimes unwilling to enact it."

Regulus felt his hand begin to tremor, but he willed it to be still. This was not to be a day of success. This was to be a day of punishment.

It was not to be an ideal day, no.

The Dark Lord circled once more, this time stopping by each that he wished to speak with. It was well-rehearsed; each man and woman knew their place. They expected uncertainty in the Dark Lord's reactions, yes, but they knew the structure within which the uncertainty would exist.

Regulus did not suppose that any of it was designed to make sense.

"And Regulus. Bellatrix has been so kind as to keep my informed of your wife's happy news. I believe her pregnancy to be progressing well."

"It is, my Lord."

"And as you grow your family tree on one side, I believe that you are progressing pruning it on another."

"I am."

"Then why is there no progress? You are a clever man, Regulus Black. You have been gathering intelligence from the Ministry that has proved so very useful. You have completed each and every other task that I have set for you, so why not this?"

"It has taken time, my Lord, he is a difficult man to locate."

"You make excuses. The Dark Lord does not tolerate excuses. I have made allowances, Regulus, for your loyalty and devotion, I have given you many chances. _Crucio_."

Regulus crumbled to the floor. He did not wish to scream, but that wish could not take the priority. His mind must not crumble.

The Dark Lord looked no more angry when the pain subsided, when Regulus was able to stand himself upright. He had not disgraced himself more than the screaming. The tremors from the curse ran through his body as he took his place once more, his legs struggling against his weight.

"I am certain that Bellatrix would be happy to complete your mission if you are not. If you wish your brother to die with any form of dignity, you will kill him by the end of this year."

A deadline. Yes, this was no ideal day.

This was further proven to be the case when he was asked to remain, as the rest of the Death Eaters filed out of their Lord's presence. Still, it would allow Regulus the excuse to avoid the drinking and the bragging. He would take his leave of their Lord, and he would go to his beautiful wife.

"I do not wish to have to impose consequences on you, Regulus Black," began the Dark Lord, his back to Regulus. "But when my instructions are not followed, I find that I have no choice. But you understand that, do you not? You are clever, after all."

"I do, my Lord."

It was important that the Dark Lord had his control, Regulus thought. It could ruin it all if he did not.

"Indeed, it could. But for now, Regulus, I have further tasks for you. I keep you back from your friends not because I wish to isolate you, but because I do not trust them all with everything. It is wise not to."

"Yes, my Lord. It is wise."

"Yes, yes." He seemed distracted, still with his back to Regulus. "I am concerned, Regulus Black, that there is a traitor in our midst."

Regulus did not allow himself to show any outward sign of panic. He cleared his mind.

"Oh, my Lord? I will help you root them out, if you desire. I will fight against any corruption of our aims by forces who seek to destroy us. I will do whatever I can to remove traitors. They do not deserve to live."

"I knew, Regulus, that I could rely upon you. You see, it is rumours at the present time. But the Dark Lord does not tolerate treachery or treason. And there is someone, I am certain of it. I do not know who. I wish for you to look for it. To be on your guard. To do what you should to bring down a traitor, if they exist."

"I will, my Lord. I seek only to serve you."

"You will do me proud. And now, you may leave."

"Thank you. Thank you, my Lord."

He turned, he left. He paused to exchange pleasantries with Rabastan Lestrange and then with Severus Snape. He listened to a joke told in poor taste by Crabbe. And then he Apparated away, entirely silently to his surprise, and landed back in the street outside number 12, Grimmauld Place.

Not that he particularly wanted to be at home.

So he turned once more, landing in the back alley behind Hermione's tiny house. It was not where he wished to be, either, but wherever that was was likely to be entirely unreachable. Regulus wanted for all of this to go, for it to be as it should be, but that thestral had flown, and he had chosen his side. Re-chosen his side.

He was, of course, the traitor that he had been tasked to root out.

Regulus made his way into the house. The lies he had told still hung bitter on his tongue. He did not enjoy the concealing, but he enjoyed what he had been forced to say less still. For he did not believe the most of it. The phrase 'my Lord' evoked the desire to vomit. An emotion he could not allow to surface. Almost nothing he had wished to feel in there he had been allowed to feel, so he had hidden it, and now the feelings felt as if they may fall out of him in all directions. It was disconcerting, and he did not like it.

"Hello," said Luna. "I thought you'd come here."

Regulus ignored that, because he had given no indication that he would, and Luna was prone to these strange things by all accounts.

"I have been with Voldemort," he said. "I do not know if I am a useful conversationalist at present."

"It doesn't matter to me," said Luna, pleasantly. "Sirius rambles incoherently half the time, and Ginny talks in Quidditch plays if you'll let her. And Hermione relies on known logic."

The last one did not seem like a criticism to any normal ear, but Regulus felt that perhaps it was to Luna.

"Well, in that case," said Regulus, "may I help myself to a cup of tea?"

"Of course. There's Hermione's in the cupboard, and Ginny drinks herbal, that's in the tin. And Sirius bought something that later turned out to be hallucinogenic, although I don't know if he did it on purpose."

"What's your tea?"

"Oh, I drink coffee."

Regulus located the tea in the cupboard, put a teabag in a mug, and then looked at it. Hermione added milk, did she not? He summoned the milk with a flick of his wand, and poured it in. It did not look how it did when others made it.

Luna appeared at his shoulder.

"Hot water," she said, "you lack that."

"Do I?"

"Well, you lack something. In tea-making, it's hot water. Perhaps it's a metaphor for something else. I wouldn't really know."

Regulus shook his head.

"I'll do it," she said. "Watch."

She dumped Regulus' attempt at tea-making into the sink, deftly flicking the tea bag into the bin under the counter. He watched as she boiled the water in something Hermione had told him was an electric kettle, and used that to add to a fresh tea bag pulled from the cupboard. Milk was added at the end.

"There's an entire debate as to whether milk goes in first or last," she said, handing him the cup. "But it doesn't matter. It's all an argument about social class in the end."

"Thank you," he said.

"You'll be looking for Hermione, I expect. Her and Sirius have gone for a walk, just the two of them. She'll be back soon enough. Would you like a book, while you wait?"

"I have lied to Voldemort."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"He believes that there is a traitor. He not only wishes for me to kill Sirius, but for me to kill myself for my treason against him. Of course, he does not know it is me. Or it is entirely possible that this is some elaborate trap. A mind-game. He may tell me this to keep me occupied while somebody else kills me. He may keep me alive only to kill my brother."

Luna blinked.

"Do you think he knows? Have you let anything slip?"

"I have protected myself at every turn."

"Then, it's entirely possible he's just an egotistical and paranoid maniac. With delusions of grandeur, and possibly some kind of narcissistic personality disorder. I wouldn't like to armchair diagnose, mind you. I'm not in the slightest qualified."

"Do you think?"

"I think a lot of things, but, yes. He seems more of the kill instantly sort, if he actually had any proof."

"He had me kill a traitor, before. I believe it now to have been a test."

"Oh, probably."

"How is it that you became involved in all of this? I have not asked, and I am curious."

"By accident, like almost all of us, I suppose. Very few of us wake up and decide to become a revolutionary, do we? I joined a group to learn defence skills, we had a very bad teacher, you see. And then my friends, they were off to fight for real, and it didn't occur to me that I shouldn't go. Why wouldn't I? It'd be dangerous, but we hadn't been learning the skills just for show. And after that it felt natural to keep fighting. But I suppose I was lucky. The people I knew, they fought for the side I believed in my heart was the right one. You did not have that luxury, did you?"

"Francis told me I was wrong. And Adeline, it turns out, thought that all along. But he, they, were the only ones. He was quite insistent I made the wrong choices."

"He was your boyfriend, wasn't he?"

"No. We never said anything of that sort."

"It's like magic, relationships. It isn't just what you say, is it? It's what you intend."

"In a different world, perhaps he would have been my boyfriend." Regulus would allow that to be said.

"Some people have a theory that with every choice we make we spawn a new universe. You could think about it like that, if it helps."

Regulus did not think that it did.

"I feel as though I cannot truly leave," he said, instead, "until I no longer stand in the Dark Lord's presence. But I do not know a way to proceed without this pretence that I am still his. Without my loyalty, as he may still believe me to be loyal, we do not have such a useful spy into his world. And it would endanger my brother. The two of them. It would endanger my wife and my child, Hermione, and the others involved in this strange alliance. And that is not what I wish for. But I do not wish to pretend to be loyal, either."

"I wouldn't want to do it, either," she said. "It must be so very hard."

"I do not feel as if I know who I am. I am not who I intended to be, and I no longer wish to be him. But I do not know who else I can be."

"You're Regulus Black," she said. "Who else could you be?"

"Is he a good man?"

"I think he probably is," said Luna. "He tries to be, anyway. Which is the important thing."

Regulus reflected on that. He was, indeed, trying. He did not know if it would make a difference.

"May we talk of lighter things?" he asked.

"Of course."

Hermione and Sirius appeared somewhat surprised by his presence on their sofa, debating magical theories with Luna, when they arrived at home. But Regulus, however little he would have expected this to be something he would do, was rather enjoying himself.

"She's not telling you about Nargles, is she?" asked Sirius.

"We are discussing ritual magic, and the appropriate usages of such," Regulus replied. "It is nothing to do with whatever a Nargle is."

"Not real," Hermione muttered, and Regulus chose to ignore her statement.

"Why are you here?" Sirius asked, unravelling what looked to be a hand-knitted scarf from his neck. It went on for some time.

"Because he wants to be," Luna replied. "He's been with Voldemort tonight."

Regulus did not wish to rehash his complaints about that, and so he chose to change the subject.

"How is it the married life is suiting you?"

"Perfectly." Sirius pulled Hermione a little more towards him as he said that, and Regulus smiled. They did suit one another, he supposed. "I don't know why I complained about the idea of marriage so much, before." He grimaced. "Well, I do. But we're not going to talk about that."

"Burying things makes them fester," said Luna, more cheerily than her words deserved.

"Indeed," said Regulus. He would not let this feeling that he did not wish to be a part of the Dark Lord's army fester. He would face it, each and every day. Because if he reminded himself how much he did not like it, how much every bone in his body now spoke against the man, then he would remain strong against it. It would always be easier to do the man's bidding. It would always be easier to allow others to make his choices. But it was not what Regulus intended to do.

"So, news from Voldemort?" Hermione asked. "Anything we should know?"

It was in recounting the story of Voldemort's belief in the traitor for a second time that Regulus realised something else.

"We do not know, except for my activities, whether Voldemort will check his Horcrux, do we? We have reason to worry about the diary, because Voldemort entrusted it into the care of someone who is now dead. But we have no way of knowing if, or when, he decides that he ought to ensure the safety of his other Horcruxes. And he is not likely, I suspect, to share such concerns with any follower, and certainly not with myself. And so that is something that we should consider."

Hermione's eyebrows furrowed and she began to bite at her lip. Sirius went to look out of the window, as if that would help them in their aim.

"Horcrux sites," Luna corrected. "It is not as if most of them are there any more. He's checked a selection of empty plinths, plinths do look so lonely when they are empty."

"We should trap them in some way," said Hermione, thoughtfully. "So we know if he goes there."

"But, presumably," said Sirius, "well enough that he can't trace the trigger back to us."

"Yes. I don't know if that's possible. There will be a book, somewhere. Maybe at Grimmauld Place. We could check, Regulus. I've promised tea with your mother and Adeline and Narcissa later this week, so we could look then?"

"Sounds like a job for Sirius," said Luna. "He does seem to know what he's talking about with that sort of thing. And I can always go with him. It isn't like I have much else to do, right now."

"I make it up as I go along."

"You didn't blow us to the sky when we collected the ring. In my way of thinking about it, it's a success."

"Not dying is always a success, I suppose."

"The problem is," Hermione said, interrupting, "Sirius can't do Malfoy Manor."

"Fuck no." Sirius grimaced. "I doubt I'd get in, for starters, and the risk is too high. You'll have to do that one, Hermione. Not that I want you to, but you know."

"Why not?"

"Well, because I don't want you in danger, do I? But the fact is, we're all in danger, and I reckon I'm in far more danger from you if I try to keep you safe than you are if you get on with it. Maybe I fancy you more because you can look after yourself. Maybe I'm just scared of what you'd do if I tried to stop you."

"Perhaps," said Regulus, drily, "you merely like women who are in charge."

"Fuck off," said Sirius. "The point is, Hermione's more than capable, but I just wanted to say that I don't like her in danger."

"Thank you," said Hermione. "I think."

"It is a rather clumsily worded compliment," said Luna. "But we do have a plan of sorts, I believe. Sirius and I will attempt an incantation that does what we require, and, when we have done so, we will pass the information to Hermione, who will do the necessary spells at Malfoy Manor."

"Best plan we've got." Sirius came back away from the window. "Here's to a day we don't have to scheme any more."

Regulus only had the cold remains of his cup of tea to hand, but he would toast to that, yes.


	59. Chapter 59: Optimal Answers

**Chapter Fifty-Nine: Optimal Answers**

 _Sirius_

 _October 1979, Little Hangleton_

Sirius lay on the wet, cold ground, the cold seeping into his clothes despite his best attempts at an Impervious Charm. It felt disgusting. He'd never been any good at those charms.

He'd hoped to have seen the back of this stupid shack a while back, when he'd first liberated the Horcrux. He'd not thought he was going to be back here, now, trying to work out how to set a non-trapping him trap for Voldemort.

Sirius had never been any use at predicting the future.

He took an experimental prod at the ground with his wand, muttering a couple of obscure charms. Nothing happened, or not visibly, but then, he hadn't been sure that it would.

A leaf fell from a nearby tree and promptly caught fire.

"Getting anywhere?" Luna asked, entirely unhelpfully. Because she was warm, wrapped in Ginny's coat, and she was sat on a dry fucking sofa she'd fucking conjured. And was reading a book. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the company, because he did, but he'd have liked said company to be slightly less comfortable.

"Somewhere," Sirius replied. "If I'm honest, I'm making it up as I go along, but I feel like the important thing is that I'm not going to blow us up."

"Yes," said Luna, tipping her head onto one side. "That is rather crucial, I'd say. It would be sad if we'd managed to retrieve the Horcrux without exploding ourselves and then we did it now."

"And after I'd gone to all the effort of getting married, too."

Sirius turned his attention to the shack. He'd assumed this was the sort of spell-casting one could do standing up, but Sirius had assumed a lot of things over the course of his life, and it had almost always resulted in every single thing going wrong.

"Do you have to be lying on your front?" Luna asked. "I'm not sure that I've seen a spell that depends on body position before."

"Got to hide it," said Sirius, distracted. "In the ground. Can't have him noticing it." He mumbled a collection of spells and some bonus Latin words, jabbing his wand into the soil once more. "Can't have a spell floating around in the air for all to see."

"Interesting," said Luna. "It's entirely true, of course, that one can see magic." Thankfully, she decided not to ask any more questions, and Sirius went back to his muttering and poking and trying not to blow himself up. He wasn't sure he was comforted by Luna knowing what it was he was going on about.

It was growing dark by the time he'd finished, or thought he'd finished, the sun setting amongst the trees behind the village. Six more leaves had set themselves on fire, but the last few that had fallen hadn't, which suggested that all of this was no longer deadly, at the very least.

"See," he said, straightening up, "despite what Hermione says, I think there would be an argument for trapping Voldemort here. Yes, he'd be angry. Yes, he may well possess the magical skills to get us out. But surely, if we killed him, he'd stay fairly dead until we got the Horcruxes sorted, right? We could chuck them in with him and explode the place and him at the same time."

"Except for we don't know about the cup, do we?" said Luna. "Hufflepuff's cup. It might be a Horcrux. It might not be."

"Hermione and Regulus are working on that. And Voldemort might not check."

"He might not. And yet, he might."

"Sometimes you're not very helpful, Luna."

Sirius made to apologise immediately, it seeming like quite a rude thing to say, with hindsight. But Luna merely stuck her tongue out at him.

"Sometimes you are a little bit too interested in explosions."

"I'm just saying," said Sirius. "We don't have a plan, and exploding him is a plan. If a terrible one. Because Hermione, in all her wisdom, says fire isn't the best answer."

"And I happen to agree with her, even if you and Ginny disagree, and if Remus seems to be a little bit terrified of her when she says things like that."

"She's a girl. Remus is terrified of girls at nineteen. Oh, and cows."

"Why is Remus afraid of cows?"

"Ah, that story's best from him."

Sirius eyed the shack. It shimmered slightly, needing to be rehidden again if they wanted to lure Voldemort in without him knowing what they'd done. It looked a mess, yes, but it had looked much of one before they'd done anything to it. One tree was slightly charred nearby, but Sirius hoped Voldemort wouldn't notice that. It was a barren, hostile landscape, anyway, aside from the village in the distance. Sirius was forced to assume that the presence of the Horcrux had corrupted it.

He thought he'd done what he needed to do. If Voldemort came along, they'd know about it. Which was the point of this. And Sirius still didn't see why trapping him wasn't a terrible idea, except for the cup thing. He'd need to look up what would happen to the floating-soul Voldemort if all his Horcruxes were destroyed after he was dead. And if the worst case scenario was a floating Voldemort soul floating around still, he'd have to look up exactly how to kill a floating piece of soul.

"We don't have a plan for the Horcruxes, do we?" said Luna.

"Not at all," said Sirius. He twirled his wand in his hand, something he'd been told by his father and James and Moody and countless other people was an atrocious idea, but something he felt the urge to do anyway.

"I wouldn't set fire to yourself," was Luna's only comment. "It rarely ends well, and St Mungo's is not exactly safe these days, is it?"

"Noted," said Sirius. "I think it's that pile of shit we need to set fire to."

"We agreed that fire was not the answer."

"No," said Sirius. "We agreed fire wasn't the optimal answer. But it remains an answer."

"Semantics," said Luna. "As much as I love semantics, this is not the time. Or the place."

"No," said Sirius. "It's a time for big fucking flames."

Luna laughed.

"What would Hermione say?"

"A lot of things. Mostly that I'm an idiot, and fire is never the answer, and setting fire to a load of bits of Voldemort's soul will do something horrific, possibly to my own bloody soul, and didn't I remember her story about Crabbe? And then probably some statistics about deaths and maimings caused by magical fire. And then she'd cry and say she loves me."

"All of that," said Luna, "is rather scarily accurate."

"What can I say? I know my wife."

"Doesn't that feel funny, saying that?"

"Oh, so bloody funny, you don't even know it. I was always convinced I'd die unmarried, you know. And I sort of did, but we'll gloss over that."

"Burying emotional trauma is not good for the soul, Sirius."

"Tell that to the fucking Dementors, Luna." If anyone would, Sirius decided, it'd be Luna that decided to go and talk to a fucking Dementor and give it fucking life advice. It was a terrible idea. But she'd probably get away with it. "On second thoughts, don't."

Luna, rather than laughing, as Sirius had suspected she would, looked at him with a mixture of sorrow and pity. Sirius looked away.

"We all do it," he said, defensively. "Burying trauma."

"We all eat a terrible diet," said Luna. "Fruit and vegetables are under-consumed in our house. That doesn't make it healthy."

"Vegetables are for wimps," said Sirius. "People who eat them almost act like they want to live to a ripe old age."

"And you never expected to."

"We're talking about vegetables."

"As often, vegetables are a metaphor."

"Vegetables are horrible," said Sirius, unclear exactly what he was now talking about. "And anyone who says otherwise is having themselves on."

Luna smiled.

"Scurvy," she said, "is the consequence of not eating vegetables."

"And what's that a metaphor for? Scurvy of the soul?" Sirius was confident there was no such thing.

"We had best work out how to vanquish our foe," she said. "Voldemort doesn't have time to wait for us to finish our debates."

Sirius supposed she had a point. Well, if he understood it, she usually did.

"I'm glad we're friends," he said, absently.

Luna beamed.

"Oh," she said, "I am too."

"I think I'm done, anyway," said Sirius, wanting to veer back onto the subject at hand. "Should we test it?"

"Seems sensible," said Luna, hopping off the sofa and with a flick of her wand, disappearing it.

"Well," he said, trying to scour the mud off his jeans with his wand, "try it."

Luna raised an eyebrow. The slightly judgemental look didn't suit someone wearing what Luna assured Sirius was a flower crown.

"I think it would be wise for me to ask about the potential consequences before I follow any such course of action," she said, "even if it is not as if I do not trust you, Sirius."

"If it works," he said, "then this rock will begin to emit a high-pitched wailing sound. If it doesn't, who knows."

"And," asked Luna, "how certain are you of the rock being the one to feel the effects?"

"Ninety-five percent."

"Okay, Sirius." Luna, sliding her book into a pocket of her cloak, gingerly stepped towards where Sirius had been working. Nothing happened. Nothing happened for a second or two as she then took one step, and then a second, over the line of spells that he had laid, and then the rock began to wail.

"Works," said Sirius, flicking his wand at the rock to silence it. "And walk out?"

Nothing happened as she did so.

"Is it supposed to?" Luna asked.

"Nah. We don't want him to know we've done this," said Sirius, "because we don't want him to try and trace it back to us."

"And we exist more than we used to. Well, you don't, you're still sort of non-existent if you look at things from an entirely legal perspective."

"Indeed." Sirius eyed his notes. He'd thought when he'd bought a magical quill that it would somehow improve his handwriting, but, sadly, it had not. At least it wasn't monogrammed. "Now all I've got to do is remove it and reapply it. Just to make sure it wasn't some kind of disastrous fluke."

"If this is your definition of a disaster," said Luna, "then I wonder if perhaps we are both hanging upside down."

Sirius checked. He wasn't sure why he checked, but it was Luna. It was wise to check.

"Definitely the right way up. Definitely not a bat."

"Or a toddler."

"No."

"Perhaps we should go to the pub, instead."

"It'd make sense to finish this today, wouldn't it?"

"Hermione isn't going to Malfoy Manor until next week, to put the same charms around the library there. And perhaps we should see how the enchantments age. If they are set off by rabbits. That sort of thing."

"Bugger," said Sirius. "Didn't think of animal life." He promptly transformed into the dog and trotted off over the line. Nothing happened.

"Well," he said, transforming back. "We're fucked if Voldemort's an Animagus."

"I did always wonder," said Luna, "why he didn't go down that path. For a man who wishes to have every form of magic at his disposal, and who enjoys pushing boundaries maybe a little bit too much, why he didn't become an Animagus. Perhaps he just didn't like the taste of Mandrake leaf. Or it is maybe difficult to use the Killing Curse with one in his mouth, and I don't know, it might be difficult in turn for Voldemort to go more than a month without murdering someone for very little reason, I think."

"We don't know for certain he isn't. Enough unregistered ones running about to make the registry a bit, well, pointless. No offence, seeing as you used to maintain the thing."

"Yes. I suppose that's a downside of having made Remus Lupin responsible for it, isn't it? There's sort of a conflict, I expect, between maintaining a register and knowing that your friends are not on it where they are supposed to be."

"But as far as we know," Sirius continued, once again dragging Luna back to the topic, "Voldemort isn't an Animagus. Maybe it was just far too mainstream for him."

"Ah, yes. Voldemort the hipster."

"The what?"

"Hipster. I suppose they were after you sort-of died. They go round on bicycles with big beards, usually only the men with the beard, looking for uncool things to like, and then they decide that they hate things once they are cool."

"Oh."

"Yes. That is sort of my view on hipsters, too, you know."

"Pub?" suggested Sirius, at a loss for what else to say.

"Good idea," replied Luna, as if it'd been his idea in the first place.

They Apparated away from Little Hangleton. It was a strange village with nothing going on apart from signs up for a WI meeting, something that gave Sirius a horrible jolt in his stomach, and they had no desire to stay there. Instead, they went to a town with a sizeable wizarding presence that Sirius and Luna had both been to before, separately, and that neither had any bad memories associated with. The wizarding pub was disguised as an empty ironmonger's shop, painted a peeling burgundy and advertising fire pokers in the window for the bargain price of one shilling.

Or Sirius thought it was a bargain price, but he didn't know for sure.

He settled into a booth while Luna fetched butterbeers from the bar. He was fairly sure he hadn't discovered this place until 1980, and so was unlikely to run into the other version of himself, but Sirius did a quick scan of the bar nevertheless. There was someone that looked suspiciously like a vampire, and several giggling witches with too many empty Gillywater glasses around them, but no other Sirius. Good.

"He looks rather like you," said Luna, pointing at a man by the bar. "But he isn't."

"Does not," said Sirius.

"Stubby Boardman. He's sort of famous." Luna handed him a bottle, the glass cold and smooth in Sirius' hand. He took a drink. Still overly sweet for his taste.

"Yes, and The Quibbler ran some sort of article claiming that I am in fact Stubby Boardman, didn't they? Or maybe that Stubby Boardman is secretly me. I'm not quite sure which way around. Anyway, this proves we are separate people, and that we look nothing alike."

"Can I ask you something?" Luna asked. She looked like she hadn't been listening to a word of that, slightly vacantly staring into the bottom of the bottle.

"Yeah. Course."

She looked like she was about to say something, paused, and then flicked her wand. The familiar buzz of the Muffliato spell enveloped them, which was probably wise. Sirius had never liked the sensation of feeling like there was something in your ears, but he'd got used to it.

"If someone, well, heavily implied that the consequences for you would be dire if you didn't do something you didn't want to do, but then you'd always thought your consequences would be somewhat dire, anyway, would you do it?"

Sirius had never heard Luna talk that fast before.

"Er, what?"

"Consequences," she said. "Death."

"Whose?"

"Mine."

"Why?" It seemed like not the right question, but then, what was here?

"It has come to my attention, some time ago, that if one believes in Divination, that my metaphorical tea-leaves do not show good portents. The Grim, almost, except that I see a Grim so often that it does not seem worth noting, any more." Luna nodded, as if to indicate that he was the big black dog of death in question. "And now I understand why, I think. Perhaps. I'm not sure, you see."

"And what is it you don't want to do?"

"I've been approached to join the Department of Mysteries."

"Oh."

"I think I said something similar. Well, no, I tried to convince them that I was my mother, something that they did not buy."

"Okay. And they're threatening you? Threatening to kill you if you don't join?"

"It isn't quite that simple. It's more about how the prophecies shift than some Unspeakable coming after me with their wand raised."

"But either way, you die, if you don't do it?

"That is what they so claim."

"Do you believe them?"

Luna shrugged.

"Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. It's hard to tell when somebody else has a different proof to you. But it does seem that way."

"If you believe in the powers of Divination."

"Which you do."

"Almost. I have a rather uncomfortable relationship with the business of prophecies and the future," said Luna. "It has always been something I have thought probable, even if there is a line between true prophecy and the art of fortune telling."

"Well, I have no idea of either of them, because I took two years of Divination and spent most of them predicting Peter's death." Unhelpful.

"It sounds as valuable a use of the time as any."

"Yeah, but, why you?"

Luna seemed to know what he was on about. She shook her head slowly, shrugging her shoulders.

"Because it's what they think they need. At the Department."

"And why?"

"There has always been, if one studied the crystal ball, a rather dark outcome over our attempts to deal with the past. I interpreted it as my own, rather unfortunate, demise. It appeared in a variety of forms, but, it is a rather imprecise art, as Hermione would no doubt tell us, and, besides, it didn't seem very important at the time."

"It bloody well is," said Sirius, but silenced himself when he saw Luna's face. It was her time to talk, not his to spit out righteous indignation, even if he wanted to.

"Well," said Luna, as if the interruption hadn't happened, "it rather transpires that it is. How much did I tell you of Betty?"

"Nothing," said Sirius. "Never heard of her."

"Well, Hermione has, at the very least," Luna said. "She's Jo's daughter, and she's heard of us, did you know that? Jo who used to live by us. And Betty's her youngest child, and you know what the wizarding world's like. Small enough that it turns out everyone is somewhere in everyone else's business, really."

"And so you've met her again."

"Oh, yes, that was the point of what I was saying, wasn't it? Betty is an Unspeakable, and she's rather interested in me. I don't know if I should trust her, but somehow, I'm being drawn into trusting her, as it were."

"Okay."

"Yes. She claims, as I have said and for what it's worth, that I'm somewhat tied to joining the Department of Mysteries. And somehow I don't want to, but that's because I never have. Wanted to, that is. But then there's another part of me that does."

"So you're not sure what to do."

"No."

"You told me once we don't work out who we are until we're thirty," said Sirius. "So you've got time."

"You are somewhat terrible at advice giving," said Luna.

"Okay," said Sirius, feeling that was unfair, because he always had been terrible at this. And he'd only repeated her own advice back at her. And she'd chosen to come to him, anyway. "Well, you could look at it like Hermione would. Draw up a pros and cons list. Do one of those, what did she call it, SWAT analysis things."

"SWOT," Luna corrected him, "or I think that was the phrase she uses. But that is Hermione advice, and I would have gone to her if I wanted Hermione advice. I'd like Sirius advice."

"I'd do it," Sirius decided. "I'd join them. If you think that, ultimately, it'll get you where you want to be. Because whatever you do in life, you're going to regret something. So you might as well make whatever decisions you want because something's always going to go to shit whatever you do."

"That's Sirius advice if I ever had heard it."

"Well, you asked."

"Yes, I suppose that I did."

"What're you going to do then? Have you talked to the others?"

"No." Luna stretched out her legs and sighed, folding her hands neatly in. "I think I hoped that if I didn't bother everyone with this particular issue it would go nicely away. But then that doesn't tend to be how things work. So it, in hindsight, was a bit of an error."

"At least you're talking about it now."

"Yes. I suppose. I, ultimately, would like to hear this rumour that I'm going to be in danger if I don't join them before I make my decision. I think that's reasonable. It could, after all, be an elaborate lie. It isn't unheard of for the Ministry to lie. After all, they said that you were guilty of what Peter Pettigrew did."

"Yeah. I dunno." Sirius joined her on the floor. "I think maybe if I hadn't stood in the middle of the street laughing, that'd have helped my case. Or talked to Remus. Or not done it. If I'd just let it roll out, they'd have put two and two together in the end, I think."

"But then they would perhaps still have got five. Or even seventeen. It was a time when I believe they wanted a scapegoat, rather than the truth."

"You should go, then," Sirius said. "Ask them for proof. If this is about the truth."

"Will you come with me?"

Sirius paused. He didn't understand why he was being asked.

"Yes."

Luna smiled, looking relieved, Sirius thought.

"You don't usually tell people what your problems are, do you?"

"And do you?"

"No, Luna, but this, for once, isn't about me."

She looked rather wistfully at the butterbeer bottle, twisting it in her hand.

"Does anybody? I have always assumed that they don't, haven't you?"

"Some people tell you everything. At length. Maybe they're the people with less significant problems, I don't know." He shrugged. "You can always tell me stuff. And Hermione and Ginny. Regulus gives terrible advice, though, don't tell him anything."

"And he has enough to keep hidden from Voldemort."

"Yeah."

"I wonder if I was perhaps drawn to Ginny because she has always seemed so, well, as if she knew what it was she was about."

"And we don't?"

"Of course we don't. Nobody truly knows exactly who they are, Sirius. Where would be the mystery in life if we did?"

Sirius felt like he'd been led into a verbal trap.

"I'd be happy with a life without mystery. When this is all over. Okay."

"Self-actualisation," said Luna.

"Yeah." Sirius didn't have the first clue what that was. "And Ginny has it, or we do?"

Luna smiled.

"It doesn't really matter. The important thing is that I don't think I am as in love with her as I was the day before this one. Or the day before that. She has what she wants, and it isn't me, and that might be for the best."

Sirius realised he'd picked the entire label off his bottle. He pushed it across the table, empty, vanishing the bits of label with a flick of his wand.

"Perhaps," he said. "Is it the wrong thing to say that I'm happy for you? Happy that you've reached that point?"

"I don't think so," said Luna. She reached out across the table and squeezed his hand once. "I think we're all doing the best we can."

"Yeah," said Sirius. "I think we are."

 _Harry_

 _June 2002, Department of Mysteries_

Ron led the way down to the Department of Mysteries. He seemed to know what he was doing. Harry, meanwhile, was less and less sure.

"Luna's at work," he muttered. "But Luna's missing. Luna doesn't work here."

"What're you going on about?" Ron asked. "Luna's always worked here. We're going to ask her if she's seen Hermione and Ginny."

"You thought there'd been a Draco Malfoy," said Harry.

"There was," said Ron, firmly. "I don't know why you think there wasn't."

Something was definitely wrong, here. It wasn't just the fact that Hermione and Ginny were missing, and, somehow, Luna had been at one point. That was a missing persons case, that required simple Auror work to solve, and that, Harry could get his head around. But Harry was a good Auror, with almost four years of experience, if you counted his two years in training. Harry knew when something wasn't what it looked like it was going to be.

The start was that it had rattled Kingsley, he decided. Kingsley was the Minister of Magic because he was difficult to rattle. He did what needed to be done. He certainly didn't shout swear words after what should have been a straightforward meeting.

And then there was his and Ron's memories. He and Ron had been almost constantly together since the age of eleven. They remembered almost all of the same things. Harry would have remembered a Draco Malfoy. And Ron wasn't lying, either. Ron was a terrible liar.

"Almost there," said Ron, striding down the corridor still. "Better hope Luna knows something."

Harry, at this stage, hoped that somebody knew something, and he wasn't particularly fussy who.

"Oh, hello, Ron, Harry," said Luna, cheerily, when they arrived in what was apparently Luna's office. She set down the parchment she'd been scribbling on and hugged both of them. "What can I help you with?"

"Have you seen Hermione and Ginny?" Ron asked, after looking at Harry as if he expected Harry to begin the conversation. "Nobody has for almost twenty-four hours now, and you were scheduled to have a meeting with her yesterday afternoon, weren't you?"

"I did. And then she went off with Ginny. They said they were going to the Burrow, I think."

"They never arrived."

"Luna," said a dark haired woman, with her hair in a complicated mess of plaits Harry thought only possible with magic. "Oh, you have visitors. I'll come back later."

"Please," said Luna. "Harry Potter and Ron Weasley have just popped down from the Auror Office."

The woman had already gone. Harry peered after her. No sign.

"You work at the Department of Mysteries," he said, sitting down in one of the spare chairs in Luna's office without waiting for an invitation. "And this is the mystery. You were missing too. Or, at least, I think that you were."

"Is it just possible I was momentarily not here?" Luna asked. "Temporally misplaced?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "Temporarily misplaced, I suppose."

"Temporally," Luna corrected.

"But if you were temporarily misplaced," Ron said, "then why did your dad think you were missing?"

"Daddy thinks a lot of things," said Luna, and Harry was forced to agree that was, at least, true. A lot of things that weren't necessarily the truth. "And I expect Hermione and Ginny will be back soon."

"Why? Did they say anything?"

"Well," said Luna, picking up a shockingly blue quill from her desk and spinning it in her fingers. "They do say a lot of things. Hermione in particular has a lot of thoughts about almost everything. But they didn't say anything specific about this, no."

Anyone else talking like this in a missing persons case would be a suspect, Harry decided. But Luna wasn't. Maybe that was bias. Maybe Luna would surprise them all and turn out to be a secret dark Lord. Harry thought it unlikely.

"So they were going to The Burrow," Ron said, taking control of the questioning again. "What time was this?"

"Oh, about four thirty in the afternoon. Something about the favours being the wrong shade of blue, I believe. And they were worried that Molly was finding that stressful."

"Mum's finding the entire bloody thing stressful," muttered Ron.

"The wedding or the alleged disappearances?" Luna asked.

"Both," said Harry. "Disappearances?"

"Hermione isn't plural, no, I suppose," said Luna. "Is that who's missing?"

"I think so," said Harry, even though he wasn't very sure any more. Hadn't there been someone else? He was sure he'd been talking about more than one person being missing, at one point, maybe as many as three.

"How many people are missing?" Harry asked Ron. This wasn't professional, but at least it was only in front of Luna. And she worked in the Department of Mysteries, had done since they'd left school, so she was likely to understand when things didn't quite add up. That was the whole premise of her department, after all.

"Hermione," said Ron, looking as confused as Harry felt. "Just one."

"I'll let you know if I see her," said Luna. "I expect she will turn up. I find she usually does. Perhaps she's just being slow to make her decisions."

"What decisions?" asked Ron, as they walked up the stairs to the rest of the Ministry, having left Luna to whatever it is Luna does.

"I have no idea," said Harry, wearily. "I think this is lack of sleep. I've been working so many hours to make sure my cases are all as settled as they can be before I go on honeymoon, that I must be imagining things."

"Possibly," said Ron. "But then how are we having the same hallucinations, if that's what's going on?"

Harry didn't have an answer for that.

"Maybe it's the Confundus," Ron continued, thinking aloud. "I had that case recently where it all hinged on that bloke keeping Confunding his wife whenever she worked out his affairs. Honestly, the amount of times he did it, she should have dumped his arse, but there we are."

"What happened?"

"She couldn't remember who she was any more, so she bludgeoned him with a frying pan because she'd forgotten he was her husband and thought he was a burglar."

"Oh." Harry didn't think he'd needed to know that. "So you think someone's Confunding us? But why? Because they've done something with Hermione?"

"We need to find Ginny," said Ron. "Because I'm sure, at one point, we were looking for her, too."

Harry had a vague recollection of that, too. He pulled out the list from his pocket, where he'd written everything down that had happened, everything he thought he remembered. No missing Ginny on it. Harry pocketed the list again, and sighed.

"It was probably just a message from Molly," he said. "There's a wedding to plan, after all. That's probably why we wanted Ginny."

Ron didn't look convinced.

"I can't remember things," he said, "and I need to know why."

"Let's look for Ginny," Harry decided. "If it's only ever been Hermione that's missing, we need to talk to her to further the investigation into the disappearance. If not, then, we could do with talking to her anyway. To find out exactly what's going on here."

"You could do that," Ron suggested. "I'll go through old case files and see if I can find anything similar."

"No." Harry didn't know why he felt this, but, for some reason, he wanted to stick with Ron. "We should stay together. We'll go up to Level Two and find a junior to do the case files. Who's up there we can trust?"

"There's always Tonks," suggested Ron. "She's usually around, isn't she? Since she's so pregnant and all, she's not on field duty so much."

"Alright," said Harry, brushing away a feeling that that, too, was somehow wrong. "We'll see if Tonks can do the research, find Ginny, solve the case."

"Yeah," said Ron. "Sounds like it'll work."

It was halfway to the Burrow that Harry realized Ron had been being sarcastic.

 _Adeline_

 _October 1979, Grimmauld Place_

If Adeline had known back in August that her husband was engaged in something entirely inadvisable, well, she had known it before that, too, but she certainly knew it now. He was plotting against the Dark Lord. She had, after all, spoken to Kreacher, that day in August when she had thought her husband may die. She knew Lyra had come in to prevent him from doing whatever it was he had intended. Or perhaps she had helped him. Of that, Adeline was not clear.

And, even without that, the clues were there if you knew what to look for.

As a child, Adeline had desired nothing more than to become an Auror when she was grown. It was all she had played, with her brother and her cousins and anyone else who she could persuade to be a part of her games. It had never been about the physical chasing down the criminal. It had been about the puzzle.

She no longer desired to work for the Ministry, but that did not mean she no longer had the skills to solve a puzzle.

Regulus Black was a puzzle, there was no mistake about that. And he was plotting against his own Dark Lord, and Lyra was somehow involved. Even without Kreacher's information, she would have known that. There was something about the way they would cloister themselves together. Adeline had briefly considered it being something else entirely, considering that Regulus' own mother and father were cousins, but she had ruled that from consideration. He may have a moral code that was not her own, but Adeline was certain he possessed one.

The question was no longer what they were doing, in broad terms at the least, and it was not why no-one else within the family had noticed, but it was how, exactly, she should broach this topic with one or the other of them.

Not if.

Adeline was determined to help.

Her husband and her brother were somehow tangled into all of this, Death Eaters marked and claimed by the Dark Lord. They had both made the terrible decision to join, a decision that Adeline would never have wished for them to make. And neither would die, not if she could prevent it. Which, ultimately, put her on the side of anyone attempting to bring down that dark lord.


	60. Chapter 60: Walburga

**Chapter Sixty: Walburga**

 _Hermione_

 _October 1979, Hambleton Hall_

"Lyra!" Adeline was approaching at a trot, holding her dress robes awkwardly from the floor above her growing baby bump. "Lyra! Could you please take a look at my hair? I'm worried it's falling out at the back, you see!"

The urgency didn't match the situation, but then, Hermione would never understand Adeline. She ricocheted from seeming like she was about to ask for involvement in the plot against Voldemort to being entirely uninterested in anything except babies and hair and back again. Hermione liked her, but that didn't mean she knew what was going on, or even whether this was a genuine hair emergency or something else entirely.

Adeline darted into a nearby bathroom and Hermione followed, tugging at the sleeves of her rather itchy velvet dress robes. They were needlessly ornate, just like the bathroom they now stood in. Adeline lowered her dress and began to peer at her own reflection in the gold trimmed mirror, while Hermione shut the door. As soon as it closed and Hermione's wand had locked it, Adeline spun around to face Hermione.

"Lyra! Have you seen Regulus' mother?"

"Not since we arrived," said Hermione, because they had all arrived together. She'd stepped through the Floo immediately after Walburga and Orion, with Pollux bringing up the rear behind her. Walburga had disappeared off with a gaggle of witches her own age on arrival, but that was hardly unusual behaviour.

"And have you been into the main ballroom?"

"Not yet." Hermione didn't know where this was going, but she was certain it wasn't anywhere good. She hadn't even wanted to come to this party, hosted as it was by Bellatrix in the Lestrange ancestral home, but at some point they may need access to the Lestrange vault at Gringotts, and it had seemed prudent to come.

"Do not, that is my advice," said Adeline, distractedly, "not that I fear you will have much choice."

"What do you mean?"

"Walburga intends to pledge you to Rabastan Lestrange today. She thinks you have delayed long enough, and that you will continue to delay, if you are allowed to do so."

Hermione opened her mouth, and then shut it again.

"Now," Adeline continued, "if you do want to marry him, of course go right ahead. I'm not sure he's right for you, I'm not sure that he is right for anyone, but it is your choice who you decide to pledge yourself to. But you have never expressed any interest in marrying the wizard, so maybe my warning will be of some use."

"Rabastan Lestrange," said Hermione, slowly. "No, I don't want to marry him."

An image swum in her brain of his face, on trial after the Battle of Hogwarts for the crimes he had committed. He'd shown no remorse. He'd laughed in the face of Kingsley Shacklebolt when his list of crimes had been read out to the Wizengamot, and when asked if he had committed them he had grinned and declared that those were merely his crimes that they knew about. He had said that he would commit all of them again, in the service of his Lord.

No, Hermione didn't want to marry him.

"I don't know what you can do to prevent it," said Adeline, "but I'm certain that you should try something."

Hermione supposed she should have told Walburga already, before it had reached this moment. But Luna hadn't encouraged her, and neither had Ginny or Regulus or Sirius. Remus had been the only voice of dissent, the one time it had been brought up in his presence.

"I've done something," said Hermione. "But I should have told her."

"What?" Adeline asked. "There's only one thing you can do that would prevent her forcibly marrying you off, well, two, but you'd need Regulus or someone to remove you from the family by blood, but she'd still be able to Imperius you. Oh, Lyra, you haven't, have you?"

"I got married, yes, if that's what you're referring to."

It was as if this was happening to entirely someone else, Hermione thought, because she had this strange detachment from the feeling of Adeline's arms flying around her.

"You're married! Oh, Lyra, you should have invited me! I'm not going to judge you for who you married, who was it?"

"I don't think I should tell you. I don't want to harm anyone. Least of all you."

"I'd keep your secret. I keep enough for Regulus'."

Hermione knew that was true, but still. Walburga had no need to doubt Regulus' stories, and she would not look for proof that they were fake. Once this came out, she would look for any knowledge anyone had about it, Hermione was certain.

"I know. I just don't want to hurt anyone."

"Afterwards," said Adeline, with the tone of someone who knew that they'd ultimately get what they wanted. "It isn't as if I've kept myself clean. I've warned you."

"Thank you," said Hermione, still feeling as if this was happening to someone else. She'd known it was a risk, of course she had. They'd discussed this many times, with Sirius and with Regulus and with Luna. "Thank you, Adeline."

"I'd have wanted somebody to do it for me, if I'd been put in this position," she said. "And I like you, Lyra. I like having you around. Regulus and I intend to ask you to stand as godmother for the baby, when they make their arrival."

"Thank you."

"But it isn't the time to be thinking of that now." Adeline turned to the mirror and began to survey her hair. "We'd better do something with this while we talk, so people don't think we were plotting anything in here." She began prodding her hairpins with her wand as she continued talking, twisting the hair further up onto her head. "So if you're married, the pledge won't stick. But we'll still have to deal with Walburga, won't we?"

"Does Regulus know?"

"I very much doubt it. This is women's work, you see. Witches plan these sorts of things."

Hermione had known she was going to have to tell Walburga eventually, and now, she was stuck in this mess. Why hadn't she done it? She hadn't wanted to. She'd been waiting until Sirius had perfected his protection and warning charms, so she could lay them at Malfoy Manor. She'd been hanging on to check about that bloody cup. There was always excuses. She'd thought she had until the end of the year. It was only the end of October.

"It's only the end of October," she said.

"You could try going through with the pledging," suggested Adeline. Her hair was twisted differently, and she was now smoothing her silver robes. "And then acting all confused as to why it won't work."

"I don't think that will work," said Hermione, not that she had many other suggestions. "I could just leave. Say I'm ill."

"That won't stop her," said Adeline. "Or I very much doubt it will. I think she thinks you'll never do this, if she doesn't make you. It does turn out she was wrong, but I'm not sure that's going to be of any comfort to you."

"It isn't."

"Well, no, I didn't think it would be."

"The only option is to tell her the truth."

Hermione didn't think it was the only option. There were several, almost all of them as terrible as the next. For instance, she could get Regulus to remove her from the family and simply disappear. She could hide. She could Confund or Stun or something like that Walburga.

She had no desire to tell the truth. As much as anything else, the truth would hurt Sirius.

"It's an option," Hermione permitted.

"I think you should tell me," said Adeline. "Who it is, I mean. Because maybe you've married a Muggleborn and think she's going to disown you. Or maybe it's a blood traitor and she'll be angry for a while, but she'll accept it in the end perhaps. He isn't a Muggle, is he?"

"No," Hermione admitted, grudgingly. "He's pureblood."

"Blood traitor?"

"She'd think so."

"Well, you might get disowned," said Adeline, tipping her head to one side slightly as if she was in thought. "Depends if he's offended her personally, I think."

"He has."

"Ah. I still think the truth is the best option. It'll hurt to begin with, yes, but surely it'll reduce the amount of hassle in the future?"

"It won't."

Hermione was certain of that, if she was certain of anything. Adeline could try all she liked, but there was no way of making this scenario any better short of Obliviating everyone involved.

"Maybe we could just stay in here for a while. I could fake an emergency trip to St Mungo's, to do with the baby?"

No, they were just going to have to walk out there, Hermione thought, and deal with this.

She wanted Sirius. It would be the one thing that would help the least, to have him here, but she still wanted it. Walburga would curse him as soon as look at him, and the chaos it would cause to introduce a member of the Order of the Phoenix into the centre of a room of Death Eaters would make everything at least twenty times worse than it was already. But she wanted him here.

"I don't have to have to hide him," she said.

"I'll support you," Adeline promised, "whatever you decide."

"Sirius Black," said Hermione, deciding, for whatever reason, that she should trust Adeline. "I married Sirius."

If Adeline was surprised or shocked, she didn't show it. She merely stepped towards Hermione and gave her a hug, wrapping her arms around Hermione's neck.

"I can see why you wouldn't wish to tell Walburga that, yes. She is so insistent that she only has one son, after all." Adeline released Hermione. "If that's the Sirius Black you mean. It isn't exactly a common name."

"That's him."

"Wherever did you meet him?"

"At the Ministry. We happened to meet entirely by accident one day."

It was the truth, if version of it that cut out quite a lot of things.

"I think we've hidden in here as long as we'll be able to get away with it," said Adeline. "I'm going to find Regulus, I think, and make sure he's aware of all of this. There must be something we can do. Oh," she said, hugging Hermione again, "I'm happy for you, you know. There'll be something we can do about this, I'm sure of it."

Walking back out into the bustle of the party, Hermione still wasn't sure exactly what it was she'd decided to do. Other than avoid Walburga. Narcissa Malfoy sat in an armchair to the side of the drawing room, primly sitting upright despite the baby having been due two days before. Perhaps she would go into labour and disrupt the proceedings. No, Walburga would carry on, anyway.

A selection of men danced their attendance on Narcissa. Despite being a widow, she was young and beautiful still, and she had more than her share of attention from eligible wizards. Hermione couldn't tell if Narcissa enjoyed it, or not. It seemed to Hermione that they were a flock of pigeons, all waiting to swoop as soon as the baby had been born.

She hated all of this.

She still wanted Sirius with her.

"Oh, Lyra, my dear, would you be ever so kind and come with me? Bellatrix is, for all of her many qualities, not suited to this sort of party, and she is finding her hosting duties all to onerous. And I said to her that you would be more than happy to help her, will you not? Because you and I, and dear Adeline, wherever is dear Adeline, we have the skills for these things. It is a certain skill, yes, for all that Orion says that it is easy."

Hermione, unwillingly, followed Walburga. This was the worst idea, she thought, of the lot of them. Sirius would never have fallen from this.

But what other choice did she have?

Regulus joined them in the wide, wood-panelled corridor, seemingly completely calm. But there was something agitated in the way that he stood, almost trying to block Walburga and Hermione from progressing any further down the corridor.

"Lyra," he said. "Adeline requires you."

"Is this to be an emergency, Regulus?" Walburga asked, putting her hand out to prevent Hermione from passing. "Because Lyra and I have something so very important that must be done. and we do not have time for delays. Do we, dear?"

An answer was clearly expected from Hermione.

"I don't know, Auntie," she said, in her best compliant voice. "All I know is that Bellatrix requires help with something."

"Yes," said Walburga, puffing up her chest. "Bellatrix requires our help."

"In which case," said Regulus, "I shall accompany you."

"It is really rather more a witches matter."

"Nevertheless, I will accompany you."

The three of them set off along the corridor once more. Hermione considered running. She was almost certainly faster than Walburga, who was shorter and insisted on wearing ridiculous shoes, and there was a Floo grate in the drawing room. Unless Walburga drew her wand, which was a possibility. But she'd never once drawn her wand on Hermione, not once.

She'd done it to Sirius countless times.

Regulus was attempting to communicate something. But she didn't understand the code, or he wasn't being clear enough, and Hermione didn't know what it was he was trying to get her to do.

Perhaps Hermione could Stun her. It was a fairly terrible plan, it was a Sirius level plan, really, but it was possibly the best chance she had. She was withdrawing her wand slowly from the sleeve of her robes when Walburga abruptly stopped and turned. Hermione tried to hide what she was doing.

"Now, I do so want this to go smoothly," said Walburga, a sickly sweet smile reminiscent of Dolores Umbridge plastered across her face. "Because it is so important, after all. It is not as if we want this to go wrong, is it?"

Regulus looked dangerously close to muttering something under his breath, which, for him, would have been quite a rebellion.

"Bellatrix's party?" asked Hermione. "We wouldn't want anything to go wrong for her, no."

"Bellatrix," said Walburga, clearly building up to something, "has so kindly agreed to allow me to use her party for another purpose. No, that is not quite right, is it, it is merely an addition to her lovely party, and not anything completely different. It is a celebration, is it not, a party, and what more than to add another celebration to it?"

In Hermione's world, that was called stealing someone's thunder. Or that's what Ginny would have called it. If Hermione couldn't have Sirius, Ginny would have been useful about now, too.

"Mother," said Regulus, "may I ask what, exactly, you are planning?"

"Oh, nothing that need concern you," said Walburga, "as I have already explained, it is a matter for witches. You may attend to support your cousin, of course, do I not frequently say that family is the most important thing? But she does so need this, Regulus, and I know your feelings on the matter, and I have listened, I do always listen to my son, my only son, but it will happen, Regulus, no matter what it is that you say."

"You will not marry Lyra off, Mother. I will not stand for it."

"Oh, come now, Regulus," said Walburga. "Be reasonable."

Hermione's hand went back to her wand as Walburga's wand arm moved, but she was just reaching for the doorknob of a nearby room. The door opened, and Walburga walked inside, followed by Regulus and, reluctantly, Hermione. This wasn't about her, now, it was about making sure that Regulus was safe.

"I know that you have, for some strange reason, always been rather opposed to the marriage of your cousin," Walburga continued, positioning Hermione in front of the mirror in the room and beginning to charm her hair into a different position. "I will not pretend that I know why. It is hardly as if she would do for you, given that you are married already. And you have never shown any objection to the marriages of either of your cousins, and they have done well for themselves out of them, with the exception of poor Narcissa's current situation, and that is hardly her fault that poor Lucius was murdered, but there you have it. So I cannot see that this would do anything other than improve Lyra's life, would it, dear?"

"I don't want to marry somebody I haven't chosen," said Hermione, firmly, but Walburga's attention was entirely on her youngest son.

"You allowed me to arrange your wedding, and have you not been happy, Regulus? Have you not been happy with your wife? I cannot see how it would be any different for Lyra."

"Because she has not asked it of you, and she has not had a choice in the way that I did."

"But she has had the chance to. And she did not choose to take it. I simply cannot see how that would be seen to be my fault, my dear."

Regulus sighed, and began to pace the room.

"Mother," he began. "I do not wish to blame you, but you cannot do this."

"I am perfectly within my rights to do what I think is best for all of those in my family," started Walburga. "And Lyra is just as much a family member as the rest of us, so I would ask you to allow me to do what I think is best. It is not as if you know what is the right thing to do here. You are a good boy, Regulus, but you do have so little experience in these matters. I only seek to do what is for the best, like I always have for you. For the entire family."

"For Sirius?" Regulus asked, stopping and staring his mother down. "What about for Sirius, Mother?"

"I would prefer that name not mentioned," said Walburga.

"No. I wish to discuss Sirius. He is my brother."

"You have no brother. You are my only son."

"I am not. And whatever comes out of today, we will no longer allow that lie."

"I hardly think now is the time. Lyra, you will be going through with this. You agree with me, do you not?"

"No," said Hermione. She'd been watching Regulus argue with his mother, almost not wanting to say anything. She was proud of him. He'd never done anything like that before, and she hadn't wanted to interrupt. "I agree with Regulus. I shouldn't marry someone. I don't even know their name. I don't want to."

"Oh, but it will be fine, my dear. Just one second. There's a piece of hair loose, I really should fix that." And Walburga with a practiced twirl of her wand did something to Hermione's hair. "Now. It looks to me as if you are ready, my dear, are you not?"

"I am, Auntie."

Something didn't feel quite right about that, but Hermione ignored that feeling. She just wanted to do what Auntie Walburga wanted her to do. It was for the good of everyone. Auntie only did what she thought was best.

"Lyra," said Regulus. "Are you sure that this is what you truly want?"

"Absolutely." Hermione smiled at Regulus, to reassure him that she knew exactly what she was doing. "I'm going to marry Rabastan Lestrange."

"If you have done something to her, Mother," warned Regulus, "then you will undo it, now."

Hermione smiled at him again, to prove that there was absolutely nothing going on.

"I want to marry him," she declared. Regulus looked agitated, she thought. She couldn't understand why he was making such a big fuss about this.

"See?" said Auntie Walburga, with a smile. "It is what she desires, and, I hardly think it would be appropriate for you to tell her otherwise. It is a good match, a lovely unmarried witch and an eligible wizard, both of good backgrounds and pure blood. And I believe you associate with him from time to time, do you not, Regulus? He is involved with the Dark Lord just as much as you are."

Regulus was really being rather silly.

"Mother," he began, before the door to the side room flung open once more. Adeline darted in, out of breath, and by her side was a large black dog.

"Whatever is that, Adeline?" asked Walburga, turning her attention away from Hermione and Regulus and focusing on Adeline and her pet. The dog looked familiar to Hermione, somehow. Like she should know exactly who he was.

"Is that a dog?" Walburga continued "Oh, you ought to know by now just how undesirable dogs are, my dear. Not an appropriate pet if you must. I would be happy to provide you with your own owl, if you wish for it, or a cat if you must, but dogs are just unsanitary. Remove it, please, and then are you ready? I did ask for your help, and you did promise to provide it, did you not?"

"The dog is not of importance here," said Regulus, firmly, although from the expression on his face he didn't know what the dog was doing here, either. That made none of them, Hermione thought, even though for some reason she still thought that she should.

"I suppose we can arrange for it to be removed later," said Walburga, "because you are quite right, it is the wedding that is of importance here, and we cannot do that if nobody is in the ballroom, can we? I expect the rest of the guests to have made it there by now, although, after all, the bride is supposed to be late. If not so late that perhaps some will think she is not attending, no, we would not want that."

The dog growled at the word wedding.

"Not now," said Adeline, warningly, to the dog. "You'll get your chance."

"Adeline," said Regulus. "That is a dog. You are talking as if you expect it to understand."

"He does," said Adeline, grimly. "He understands exactly what's going on here."

"We will get on with the wedding now," said Walburga, shaking her head. "Adeline, my dear, perhaps it is the pregnancy going to your head. I felt most strange during most of my pregnancy, let me tell you. It is of course the most important thing a witch can do, and I still regret that I could not have more, after your birth, Regulus, but then you have been such a good son to me, my only son, and you will not disappoint me today, I am certain of it."

The dog growled again.

"Come along, Lyra."

Hermione ignored the dog and began to follow Walburga away from the mirror and towards the door of the room.

"She is under the Imperius," said Regulus. "Mother. You will tell me. Have you placed an Unforgivable Curse on my cousin?"

"Of course not, Regulus. Would I do such a thing to my own niece. This is entirely your own will, is it not, Lyra?"

"It is." No. Regulus' words, and the dog barking, and the feeling that something wasn't right made Hermione stop in her tracks. "No. It isn't."

"Nonsense," said Walburga. "You are simply nervous, my dear. Aren't you?"

"Yes, Auntie," began Hermione, automatically, but that hadn't been what she was wanting to say at all. "No. I don't. I'm married already, you see."

That hadn't been what Hermione had wanted to say, either, but it worked. Walburga shrieked, a piercing scream as if someone had died. Adeline merely looked smug. Regulus placed himself between Hermione and Walburga, and, with a flick of his wand, sent his mother's wand soaring into his hand.

"You put her under the Imperius Curse," he said, once more. With Walburga's wand removed from her, Hermione felt freer, or perhaps she'd fought most of it off. She didn't want to do this. She'd said she did, in front of - the dog was Sirius. Of course it was.

"Why would you do such a thing?" Walburga asked, but her voice was low and dangerous. "I just want what is best for the children of my family."

"I wish to be able to believe that," said Regulus. "But that is not what you did for Sirius, in the end. And it is not what you did for Andromeda. So, perhaps, I would be unlikely to believe that you wish for the same for Lyra."

"She will be ostracised without a decent marriage. She is a clever girl, Regulus, you must see that, and if she wishes for any life at all she will make a marriage to a nice, pureblood wizard and she will be happy. I did well out of it. I have you."

"You have two sons," said Regulus. He turned to Adeline. "I do have one further question, if I may. Why is there a dog here?"

"Better he explains that," said Adeline.

"He is a dog," said Regulus, once more. "You can expect an explanation of it all that you like, but you will not get one. Dogs cannot speak."

The dog turned into Sirius.

Walburga began screaming obscenities at him. Regulus silenced her with a flick of his wand.

"Bollocks," he said, with an air of despair. "I suppose that I did ask you to fetch him. Was the Transfiguration your idea, or his? _Colloportus,_ " he added, pointing his wand at the door.

"I'm somewhat of a dog person," was Sirius' answer, as he transformed to a dog and back again in quick succession.

Regulus raised an eyebrow.

"Registered?"

"I'll let you guess."

"Back to the issue at hand," said Adeline, shaking her head at the pair of them. "Lyra, are you quite alright?"

"I'm fine," said Hermione. She'd never liked the Imperius Curse, it wasn't fun, but she was absolutely fine. She wouldn't have anyone treating her like she wasn't. Sirius walked over to her side, obviously trying for casual.

"Hello, mother," he said. Walburga was silent, still under the effects of Regulus' spell, but shot him a glare almost as strong as any curse. "It's a while since I've seen you."

Adeline took a seat, and the rest of them seemed to consider their course of action. Regulus twirled his mother's wand in his hand.

"I am not sure quite what I hoped to achieve with you coming here," Regulus admitted to Sirius. "Perhaps we should allow Mother to speak, now?"

"Personally," said Sirius, "I don't ever recommend that."

"He stood up for you," said Hermione, feeling like it was something that needed to be said. "He told your mother she had two sons."

Sirius made a strange noise, stood a little bit taller, and shrugged.

"About time," he said, but it looked like he wanted to say something entirely different.

Regulus flicked his wand at Walburga once more.

"Shame of my flesh," she said, her voice low as she glared directly at Sirius. "How dare you come here today, how dare you ruin what was to be a happy day? You are no son of mine, no matter what anyone else has to say on the subject, no, you are a blood traitor and I will never acknowledge you as any part of this family, scum."

"Mother," said Regulus. "I will silence you again if you continue to speak to my brother in that manner. I believe you want answers. And you will not get them. Perhaps we can avoid a scandal, if you are to behave."

Walburga wheeled to face her younger son.

"Regulus," she began. "You understand what he has done to me. What he has done to our entire family, no less. He is a stain on the tree, a cancer on all of us, he will bring us to ruin if he is allowed to continue in his ways." She stopped at that point, not willingly, but because Regulus had once again prevented her from speaking.

"I am sorry, Mother, but you were warned. Now, it appears that today's wedding is unable to continue, due to the bride being currently married. That is a shame, I am sure, but there must be a way we can get around this without further scandal to the House of Black. After all, Mother, were you not saying yesterday how the family could not withstand further scandal? Bellatrix was almost arrested once more, as I am sure you are aware. And they are already discussing if she may be having an affair of the heart, and perhaps more, with the Dark Lord. Those are not rumours you would wish to see spread, I am certain. So, I think, we will be allowing Lyra to continue with her life as she wishes it to be lived."

Walburga nodded, reluctantly, slowly, glaring around the room as she did so.

"That is all that we will need from you, as well. I expect you will not tell anyone of Sirius' presence here. That would not reflect well on you, either. I am sure you will not worry if he was to be dead, by the way that you speak of him, but it would not do to have deaths at a party, would it? I know that it is Bellatrix's party, but of course, Adeline has made it clear who has planned this in truth. And so it would reflect ever so badly on them."

He unlocked the door, and gestured to Walburga that she could leave. She did so.

"You forgot to unsilence her," said Adeline, from her chair.

"I did not forget a thing," said Regulus. He pocketed Walburga's wand and then his own.

"Fucking hell," said Sirius. "Are you Regulus, or are you, I don't know, Ginny in disguise? Luna?"

"I am Regulus Arcturus Black," he said, raising his chin. "And I believe I have just done something I ought to have done some years ago.

"Fucking hell," said Sirius, again. He strode over to his brother and wrapped him in a hug. Regulus rolled his eyes, of all things. "You're bloody ridiculous, that's what you are." He released his brother, and went back to Hermione's side, taking her hand. "Are you alright?" he asked her.

"It was just an Imperius," said Hermione. "She's not done anything. I'm fine."

"No, merely something very illegal," said Regulus.

"It can't be very illegal," said Hermione. "It's either illegal or it's legal."

"Technicalities," said Regulus.

"I do have several questions," said Adeline, "if we're all quite sure that Lyra is okay. Because for a start, you're in contact with your brother, who is a known member of the Order of the Phoenix. According to overheard bragging of Bellatrix, you're supposed to be killing him, else she gets to."

"That is likely Bellatrix attempting to make herself sound more important than she is in truth. You are aware of what she can be like, I am sure."

"Regulus Black," said Adeline, with a sigh. "I've been quite tolerant of whatever it is that you have been doing these past months, but this seems to be the point at which I demand an explanation. I chose to ignore your fascination with the Dark Lord, that liaison with your former boyfriend, whatever that was with Kreacher and a necklace, but this is something that I will need to know the full details of."

"She has a point," said Sirius, unhelpfully.

"All I wish is to protect you."

"And I wish for a husband who tells me the truth. Is that so much to ask?"

Regulus stared at her, obviously racked with indecision. Hermione stole a look at Sirius. Apart from those first few months, they'd always told one another the truth. No matter how hard it had been. Sirius looked back at her, then to Regulus, who now seemed to be appealing to Sirius. He nodded.

"Go on," said Sirius. "You can't lie to her."

"I am in the process of leaving the employ of the Dark Lord," said Regulus, slowly. "I have not told you because I thought that it was the best way to keep you from the consequences of my actions. If you do not know what it is that I intend to do, you see, you cannot be blamed. You cannot be hurt for my crimes."

Adeline smiled, a soft, sad smile.

"I don't know if the Dark Lord is as principled as you believe him to be."

"That may well prove to be the case. I thought I knew him. I did not. And then I thought I knew my mother, and I did not."

"At least," she said, "I knew from the beginning that I didn't know all of you."

Hermione watched them both; Regulus standing as if he was on trial, Adeline with her hand on her belly, shifting slightly as she stood.

"You believed that I am a Death Eater. I am not, not now, not in my heart."

"Why?"

"He does not want what I want. He wants power. Power at the cost of everything else."

"And so what are you doing now, Regulus?"

Regulus looked to Hermione and then to Sirius.

"We are intending to kill him."

To Adeline's credit, there was no gasp of surprise or even any show of shock, like Hermione had been expecting. She merely raised an eyebrow, and feed Regulus with a rather fierce stare.

"That's quite a task. I believe there's an entire Order of the Phoenix devoted to just that, who aren't able to complete it."

"I have not joined the Order of the Phoenix, if that is what you ask."

"It was not, but there we are. At least now I know."

"And it must be a complete and entire secret, Adeline. It puts not only my life but yours at risk if you do not keep this to yourself."

"Oh, I will. I do have a skill for keeping secrets, you know. And now, it may be suspicious if we all remain here for so long, so I'm going to go and circulate. I expect that Regulus and Lyra will follow me before too long." She eased herself out of the chair and disappeared off through the door, stopping only to kiss Regulus on the cheek.

"I suppose I should be thinking about going back into the party, myself," said Regulus. "Do be careful in here, Sirius. You will have many wands turned on you if you choose to walk outside this room."

"I'm well aware of that. Fucking hell, Reg, why is everyone you know a Death Eater?"

"Adeline is not. And nor are the pair of you or your friends. That is enough to be starting with, else it will seem suspicious."

"Yes. You have your spy role, I suppose."

"Thank you," said Hermione. "For doing what you did."

"It is of no matter. As I have said previously, I think it was rather overdue that I said some of that to my mother. I can only hope that my threats will be enough."

"They are for today," said Hermione. "What we're going to do after this, I don't know. If she doesn't guess by the fact that Sirius was here, she'll be trying to find out who it is I've married. She could make things difficult for me, even if she doesn't disown me. And I promised to stay to help you."

"While your help is invaluable, I am certain I will be able to carry out my tasks alone," said Regulus, with a smile. "I do not wish for you to come to harm because of your wish to help me."

"I know. Thanks. I appreciate that."

"Good. In which case, I shall be off. Do not do anything that I would not do, brother. Shall I make your excuses to the party, Lyra?"

Hermione wanted to seem as if she was strong enough to continue, but, really, she didn't want to see Walburga again. The woman had been willing to use an Unforgivable Curse over almost nothing. She was exactly as Sirius had always said she was.

"Please," she said.

"Consider it done."

And now Regulus left the room, leaving Sirius and Hermione alone. He had wandered over to the window, poking at a potted-plant on the windowsill with his wand. He stood out in the room with it's engraved wood panels, gilt accents and silver candlesticks, the antique furniture perfectly chosen to coordinate and enhance the room. He was scruffy, in jeans and a t-shirt, his hair its usual unbrushed mess. He was more beautiful than all of it.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry about my mother."

"I doubt you wanted her to be like that. It isn't your fault."

"But it is." He didn't look at her. "Bloody Bellatrix. This is a poisonous plant, did you know that? And it's just in a sitting room."

"It isn't. I didn't think she'd do this, okay? It's my fault. I should have known. You've told me enough stories that I knew she was able to do this sort of thing."

"I didn't think she'd do it to you."

"Neither did I." Hermione sighed. "I think that's fairly arrogant to say that, because I'm not special. If she could do it to her own son, of course she could do it to me. Why would I be any different?"

"Hermione," he said, turning away from the potted plant and looking at her, "this house is full of antiques and rarities and magical artefacts that are fucking priceless, and yet, you're the most special thing in it."

He turned back to the windowsill and threw the potted plant out of the window.

"Dealt with that," he said.


	61. Chapter 61: November

**Chapter Sixty One: November**

 _Ginny_

 _November 1979, Kent_

Ginny darted into the last room along the landing of the house in search of anyone, anything, Peter and Remus hot on her tail. Her feet, in Kneazle-shaped slippers, skidded on the wooden floor. Nothing was in there. Just as she'd suspected, really. They'd gone.

"Nothing," said Peter, jabbing his wand at all of the furniture in turn, in case of concealed Death Eaters ready to ambush them. Remus went the opposite way around, punctuating his incantations with swear words.

"Bloody hell," said Ginny, watching the door, just in case. "It's a disaster."

They'd arrived too late. Three dead Muggles, three dead half-blood witches, and a dead Muggleborn wizard, and the Death Eaters disappearing in front of their eyes. And they'd got here as fast as they could. They couldn't predict any of this, anymore.

"It's all bollocks," said Remus, pushing the hair out of his eyes. He'd found nothing, and neither had Peter. "Seven people dead. Why?"

"Because they're bastards," said Peter, with menace, but Remus was looking at Ginny with hopeful air that she might have some top-secret information from the future. She had nothing. So she stood in the middle of the room as Peter continued jabbing at furniture and muttering, and Remus stood at the window, hiding himself in the curtains as he surveyed the gardens.

"Because it's all entirely random," said Ginny. "It has to be. How else do they pick who to target? It doesn't make any sense. There isn't any pattern, any more, or at least not one that I can see."

Remus looked grim. So she'd confirmed what he expected. There wasn't anything they could glean from her future knowledge, and there wasn't anything they could do. Aside from trying to take down Voldemort, of course. As if that was a simple task.

That and keep her students safe. She felt like she could do that at Hogwarts, but in a month or so they'd be going home, most of them, and then they were out in this, with nobody to protect them in the case of the Muggleborn students. And they'd be targets, that much she was sure of.

Minerva and the other Heads of House had gone around the common rooms, trying to persuade the students they thought most at risk to stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas break. But the younger ones didn't understand the risks, and the older ones wanted to protect their families. Even though there was nothing they'd be able to do, not if the Death Eaters really tried. Four of the people dead here had had magic, and a fat lot of good it'd done them tonight.

"We're doing what we can," said Remus. "We're trying."

"It isn't enough," said Peter.

Remus was right, in a sense, but Ginny's heart agreed with Peter. The two of them had secured the Horcrux site in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts a week or so before, smuggling in Sirius in dog form with the help of the Marauder's Map. He'd cast the tricky spells, and she and Remus had hung around awkwardly until it was time to escort him out. But it was done, that was the important thing. And Regulus had dealt with the one in Malfoy Manor, and Sirius and Luna the fake locket in the cave.

Hermione, after the incident with Walburga, was staying away from there, and she couldn't be seen anywhere else, so she was on research duty. Not that she was taking that well. Ginny had limited sympathy. She hadn't been allowed to help get the locket from the cave, and she was stuck out at Hogwarts most the time, unable to risk even talking to the others except for Remus and very occasionally, Peter.

Hermione was trying, they were all trying, and yet they didn't know if the cup was a Horcrux, they didn't know how to get to it, they hadn't killed Voldemort, and people were still dying.

"I didn't think you were supposed to be coming," said Peter, eyeing Ginny's slippers. "Aren't we supposed to be keeping you out of the action so Hogwarts keeps it's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?"

"Nobody ever officially said that," said Ginny, "and, besides, it was really more guidance than anything. I'm not due to be killed or fired or maimed until June or July, if the pattern continues as it has. Statistically, therefore, I may be safer than Remus. Or Sirius, who Bellatrix certainly seems to be going for in particular. Don't you think?"

"Of course she is," said Peter, darkly. "They want him dead, all that family. You can see it in their eyes. I still think that thing with his brother in the summer was a trap. He never came back, did he?"

Remus and Ginny exchanged a look.

"Something must have happened," said Ginny. "He looked genuine, I thought."

"I feel sorry for him," said Remus. "He was seventeen when he took the Dark Mark. He's been poisoned by his family, and now he's having a kid, and he's stuck in all of that. I reckon he lost his nerve."

"Whatever the situation, I don't trust him. I was seventeen when I committed to this. It's old enough to know what you're doing. He's an adult."

"Don't trust who?" asked James, far too cheerily, entering through the doorway. The look on his face was anything but cheery; it was drawn, with a downwards turn to his mouth. A graze covered his left cheek, bleeding slightly.

"Regulus Black," Peter said.

"Are you okay?" asked Remus.

"Fine. It isn't even curse damage - I tripped chasing Dolohov. Bloody stupid injury, it was. Bastard got away, I got caught up in some fancy rug." James mimed the movement. "Far as Regulus Black's concerned, I have no idea. The way he turned up like that was odd, wasn't it? Sirius might kill him on sight, or capture him to put in a safe house. Could go either way."

"Well, let's hope we don't see him, then," said Ginny. "Or at least not until Sirius knows how he should react."

James nodded. "Anyway, Moody says we'd best get out. Leave the place to the Aurors, seeing as there isn't anyone to catch. He wants us all back at Headquarters for a debrief, unless you need to get back to the school, Philomena?"

Ginny shook her head. "I've not got any duties until Sunday night," she said. "I'll come back with you, though I didn't see anything Remus and Peter didn't."

"We can all have a drink," said James. "Merlin knows I need one."

Lily and Sirius, the younger Sirius, were waiting for them on the lawn outside. Ginny was used to the sight of Sirius in constant movement, but to see Lily this agitated was less than usual.

"It's horrible," she said, reaching for James as she spoke. "It's the third in the last week."

"Come on," he said, wrapping his arms around her in sympathy. "Let's go back. It doesn't do us any good to linger."

Ginny reached for Remus' hand, and the two of them Apparated together, arriving just outside the protections placed on Headquarters. It shimmered, half-visible, in the dawn light, disguised by heavy charm work and a thin line of bare trees. Their hands remained linked as they crossed through the trees and over the stile into the back garden. Remus spoke the password at the fence.

"Do you ever wonder how we survive?" he asked, as they walked through Dorcas' herb garden, watching out for Moody's booby-trapped paving slab. "I mean, why it's us?"

"Because we volunteered. We're brave, principled, the finest witches and wizards arrayed to fight the forces of darkness, you know, all those things Dumbledore says."

"And why's it now? Why's it us it affects? Why're you back here?"

"Fluke," she said. "I've always put it down to fluke."

"That sounds about right." He paused a few feet away to the back door, and reached down, brushing her fringe out of her eyes. "I'm glad we have, this far. Is it selfish to want to reach the end? To want to get to the end with you?"

"Not at all," she said, leaning up and kissing him. "Me and you. Sirius and Hermione. James and Lily. Luna. Peter. This Sirius. I want everyone to survive it."

"We'll all live happily ever after, like in a fairytale."

"Most of the old fairytales never worked out for the best. Everyone dies in the Tale of the Three Brothers. There's a version of Babbity Rabbity where she's drowned in her own cooking pot."

Remus wrinkled his nose. "My mother tells a tale where a queen was accused of eating her own baby. Maybe this one will end better."

"Yeah. Maybe."

"In fairness, Rhiannon was absolved of the crime in the end, and the baby was alive all along. So even that one wasn't all bad."

He made to brush her fringe again, and she rested her head on his chest, feeling the soft, warm beat of his heart. They were still alive. Perhaps that would have to do, for now.

"There you are," said James, sticking his head out of the kitchen window. "Moody reckons you were ambushed and now you're dead in some painful manner."

"Moody doesn't understand the meaning of the word optimism," said Ginny, "let alone know how to practice the concept."

They trooped inside; not that there was much to say in the debrief. Nobody had any information that the Order hadn't heard multiple times already - the Death Esters involved were the same as usual, the mode of killing was the same, the victims fit the usual profile of people with Muggle heritage or those who disagreed with the Death Eater's aims. They had a moment of silence for the victims, and then the meeting broke up, assembling into smaller groups who clutched goblets of Firewhisky or cups of tea as some kind of emotional support. The war was affecting them all.

Ginny found herself outside with Peter. Sirius and Remus had been sent out to check the Aurors had done their jobs, and James and Lily had pleaded tiredness to go home, but neither she nor Peter were in the mood for sleep. They sat on the bench in Dorcas' herb garden, cups of tea in hand, not saying much. There wasn't an awful lot to say.

"I've got to be at work in an hour," he said. "I don't want to call in sick in case they think I was there last night. You can get fired for being an Order member, these days. Not that it's that. I don't want them to think I was on the other side."

"Dorcas might have a Pepper-Up potion handy," said Ginny, although she was almost certain it wasn't practical help that Peter required. She was careful with him. She'd hated this man for so many years, for the thing he hadn't done yet. And now she was trying to prevent him from doing it. "But that isn't it, is it? It's the overwhelming sensation of this all being shit that you're struggling with."

"Yeah."

"Same."

Peter poked a growth of parsley with his foot. The herbs flourished, which was whatever the exact opposite was of a metaphor for the rest of them.

"I knew one of the people that died tonight," he said, slowly, refusing to look at her as he spoke. "We were both in the Chess Club at Hogwarts. She was the year above me, a Ravenclaw. We stuck together at school, me and James and Sirius and Remus, so she was the first friend I had outside of that lot. When you're part of a group like that, and everyone else has something that makes them more special, more interesting, more, I don't know, attention-grabbing, it's nice to have someone who doesn't see you next to your friends and knows you because you're who you are. Her name was Charlotte."

"I'm sorry," said Ginny.

"It's bollocks," Peter continued. "Because so many people have died, I've lost friends before, but this makes me want to go out there and kill people. I was scared before, scared of what might happen to me. Now I just want to murder whoever did this. Is that normal, Phil? You killed Lucius Malfoy. Did it make you feel any better?"

"No idea," said Ginny. Except she did know. She knew what she felt after Fred had died, anyway. "Yeah. I think it is. And no. Doesn't make me feel any better at all."

Peter sighed.

"Maybe. I'm going to get to work. Maybe I will cadge that Pepper-Up off Dorcas." He tried to smile. It mostly just looked sad and forced, to Ginny's eyes. "See you. Don't die while I'm gone."

He wandered off into the house, leaving Ginny and the herbs to contemplate life all by themselves. She'd always liked silence, being the youngest and never bloody getting any at home. Now, it felt somehow wrong.

But Peter was still fighting, she reminded herself. He was angry at the Dark Lord. He wasn't so scared any more, he'd said that himself. So maybe they were doing something useful. If Peter didn't go to Voldemort, they could put off some of the worst things happening, no matter what else. Couldn't they?

 _Regulus_

 _November 1979, Grimmauld Place_

He had been entrusted with the task of rooting out this traitor, and so, therefore, it was a task he must at least make a show of completing. Even if it was, in its most basic form, a show of looking for himself.

A year ago, or even six months, his role models in how to do this task would have been Bellatrix or Lucius. Both would use this as an opportunity for their own advancement, Regulus suspected, albeit in different ways. Bellatrix would look to bring down rivals as well as to place herself in the good graces of the Dark Lord, and Lucius would likely do something similar, if less immediately bloody.

But they were not who he wished to emulate any longer, and he suspected that the friends he had more recently made were less than likely to have found themselves in such a compromising position as this. Were they friends? Sirius was a brother. The rest of them, he did not entirely know where it was that he stood.

Hermione and Walburga were to remain separate for a bit, and he did not wish to involve Adeline. He had put her in danger enough with the escapades at Hermione's would-be wedding party. And so he worked the room here alone, asking questions he thought shrewd enough to gain some information - not just for the Dark Lord, no, but for himself. He would need to discover the location, or not, of Hufflepuff's cup. It was in the Lestrange vault in Hermione's future. But there were few enough ways to tell if it was indeed there now.

He needed to talk to Rabastan, perhaps. Bellatrix was too volatile. So he had set up a party, a gathering to celebrate the birth of Narcissa's child, and he had invited prominent Death Eaters as well as others from their circle. And he would pay lip-service to this idea of searching for the traitor, and he would befriend Rabastan, and perhaps, at some point, this task would seem less of an enormity and closer to an achievable ideal.

Regulus was making his way across the party to the brother of his brother-in-law, when he was interrupted by Severus Snape. The two of them had been friends at Hogwarts, yes, but Snape remained a loyal servant of the Dark Lord, and Regulus was whatever it was that he was. He could no longer consider the pair of them friends, but Regulus exchanged pleasantries nonetheless.

"You're looking for a traitor," said Severus, bluntly.

"I am."

"And the Dark Lord has entrusted you with this task."

"Are you doubting the Dark Lord's choices?" Regulus asked, sipping at his wine in what he hoped was a casual manner. "I am assured that I have his full trust."

"You haven't killed your brother."

"If the Dark Lord did not have trust in me, he would not have given this task to me. I shall repeat myself, do you doubt the Dark Lord, Severus?"

Regulus did not like arguing in this manner, but it did serve its purpose. Severus looked as if the sting had been taken from him. He resorted to glaring down at his own goblet, half-full of wine. and shuffling his foot.

"More wine?" Regulus asked, offering the pitcher out to his friend. He had always considered Severus to be a friend. And he knew what Hermione had told him of the other man, and of his future. He had no love for Sirius.

And he had also always known Severus to be dangerous.

"Fine," said Severus. "But you will have to kill Black. I have no patience for holding back so that you can do the job."

"I will do what I am expected to do," said Regulus. "In that, and in rooting out the traitor for the Dark Lord."

"Talk to Avery," said Severus, before turning on his heel. "He may be worth the time."

Regulus resolved to indeed do that. A lead was not to be turned down.

With the gathering over, he excused himself upstairs to the bedroom he shared with his wife. Adeline lay on the bed, her belly visibly larger now.

"You look as if you have had a long evening," she said.

"In some regards," said Regulus, beginning the process of removing his formal robes. She watched him as he did so, and it still felt somewhat strange to him, that she would regard him in that manner. He had assumed that Francis would wish to see him naked, when they had been together. He had never assumed the same of her.

But she had said that she loved him, and he had said that he loved her, and he had spoken the truth. So he must assume that she had, as well.

"I am trying to balance several important things," he said, "and you are the most important of them all."

"You believe that," she said, looking slightly shocked to his view.

"I would not say it if I did not." He settled himself onto the bed beside her, in merely his underwear. "I love you. You and this baby are the most important things in my life."

"Except for your attempt to defeat He Who Must Not Be Named."

"No. I do that for the two of you, I think. It may not have started that way, but it certainly seems to be that way now. I do wish to do good for the entirety of wizarding society, of course, but you are my wife and my child. You are important to me."

"I'm proud of you, you know. You're doing this, and you stood up to your mother, and you will be a good father."

"I hope only to be better than my parents." They had made mistakes, certainly.

"I don't wish to offend, but I hardly think that's difficult."

"No," he said, thinking about things in more detail. "I do not hope only to be better than my parents. I want to be a good father to our baby. I want to live to see his or her life, and I want to be somebody they can be proud of."

In answer, Adeline picked up his hand and laid it onto her belly. And it moved. The baby firmly kicked against his hand, it was truly in there.

"See?" she said. "It loves you already."

"Sirius for it's second name, if it is a boy," Regulus said. "And perhaps Lyra or Andromeda for a second name for a girl."

"I think that would be nice."

They lay there for a moment, and it was, to Regulus, as if it was just the two of them that mattered. The three of them. Himself, and her, and the baby that he could still feel moving under the weight of his hand.

 _Luna_

 _November 1979, Department of Mysteries_

"Are you sure that you want me here?" Sirius asked, eyeing the dark tiles of the Department of Mysteries with what looked to Luna an awful lot like trepidation. She merely stepped through the door, not allowing it to close behind her. The spinning room made her feel very sick. "Wouldn't you rather have had Ginny or Hermione?"

"I asked who I chose to ask," she said. It was the truth. She'd considered all of them to discuss this with, even Regulus, although she had discounted him immediately. "Besides, I came with you to assist in setting those very clever alarms around the Horcruxes."

"I don't think that's, well, I don't think that's a) a fair trade, or b) a very wise thing to talk about in here," he said, looking around now as if the walls might have ears. Luna swung open the correct door.

"It can't hear you, you know."

"It isn't sentient," said Sirius. "It's the people I'm worried about."

Luna only nodded. She had brought Sirius because he was the one who would understand all of this. He was the one with the vested interests, even more so than the others. And, besides, she liked his company.

"I wouldn't worry," she said. "It isn't like this place killed you."

Sirius looked ready to say one of maybe six or seven things, but seemed to decide that none of them were a particularly good idea. Instead, he followed as she turned and began to walk the now familiar path to Betty's office. She didn't much like the walk, but it didn't give her that twisty sense of dread anymore. Butterflies, perhaps. Or small pixies in her stomach. Perhaps that meant she did want this job.

It would be rather nice if that was the case, given she was coming here to accept it.

"The more I think about this whole thing, the stranger it is," said Sirius.

"I try not to," Luna replied, because it was true enough.

"Could it be sentient?" Sirius asked. "Do you think?"

"I don't think we have time for conspiracy theories now, do you?"

Sirius muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'Rotfang Conspiracy', but Luna chose to ignore him. There was a vast difference, wasn't there, between that, which had undeniable proof, and the idea that the Department of Mysteries as a set of architectural installations could spy on them. The people, absolutely. But the charms to give walls eyes were horrendously difficult.

Betty waited for them as usual, and Luna found herself slipping into the usual routine of their pretence at conflict between the two of them. If Luna chose to be truthful with herself, she wasn't always sure if there was even anything they disagreed on now, or not about her course of action, at any rate. It was becoming rather clear what it was she would have to do.

With that over, and an introduction to Sirius, who was sitting rather nervously on a sofa in the corner, Betty pulled an orb from her pocket. Luna recalled exactly what it was. They'd fought the Death Eaters over one of those, the one that had Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort written on the label. This one was labelled with her name.

"You heard it," said Luna.

"I did. I didn't believe in prophecies."

"You work here."

"Very well, Luna. I believe in the compulsion of people to want to believe in things bigger than they are, and, therefore, that a witch or a wizard will act in accordance with a prophecy because they want to continue that belief."

"Therefore you believe prophecies come true."

"If they are known."

"It is much the same as believing in the prophecy itself, don't you think?"

Luna looked over to Sirius to see what he thought, who only raised an eyebrow. Well, she knew that much. He didn't believe in prophecies, he'd told her that on the walk between the Atrium and here. He thought Voldemort had been a fool for targeting the Potters over the words of Professor Trelawney. In fact, his words about them had seemed awfully similar to those of Betty.

But she was certain he hadn't Polyjuiced himself into her, as they were here at the same time, so Luna decided that it wasn't worth worrying about that.

"We'll get on with business, I think," said Betty decisively, putting the prophecy orb onto the table close to Luna. "You don't have to smash it. Merely tap it with your wand."

"How can you remove it?" Sirius asked, leaning into poke the orb with his finger. Why, Luna did not know, but some people have the desire to touch everything, she supposed. "Only the people named can remove them. Not even Ministry staff. I'm fairly sure that's what lead to my death, so I'd know."

"That is correct," said Betty, with a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "He's intelligent enough."

"He's here," muttered Sirius. "And he doesn't like not being answered."

"Look at the label," said Betty, leaning back almost lazily into her chair. Luna saw no reason not to follow the request. Besides, she knew what she was most likely to see, and there was a point at which beyond anything else became highly improbable. She'd always liked Arithmancy.

"You're involved," said Luna, when she'd seen what it was she knew she'd see. Betty merely nodded. So Luna heard what it was she had to hear.

"I'd watch out," said Betty, to Sirius, when they were standing up to leave. "You're going to have a choice to make in the near future. Make the right one."

"I didn't think you believed in prophecies."

"I don't. But I can also travel in time."

"Bloody insane," said Sirius, once they were safe back in the corridor and walking at quite a pace well away from the Department of Mysteries. Luna wondered if he knew he'd picked up some of Ginny's speech patterns. "The whole lot of it. What do you think?"

"I think," said Luna, carefully, "that it isn't the prophecy that's important."

"Tell that to Voldemort," muttered Sirius. "That's due next month, you know."

Luna neatly parked that particular problematic broomstick in it's shed. No, she'd had quite a lot of thoughts, but she wasn't entirely sure which ones she should express to Sirius. Betty didn't believe in prophecies, but she'd been certain that this one was important. And the warning to Sirius had been a warning to him, yes, but maybe it had been a way of communicating something to her, too. She didn't know where Betty had been, after all.

"It seems complicated," she decided on. "I don't think I understand it."

That was the truth, yes, as she'd tried to tell herself she would stop keeping things from everyone else. It wasn't all of it, but it was probably a start.

"I can help you work it out," Sirius said. "If you want me to."

"Thanks." She did appreciate him doing this.

But Sirius had stopped, right in the middle of the corridor. A Ministry official in Wizengamot robes tutted as he had to step out of Sirius' way, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Luna," Sirius said, staring down at the small pebble he held in his hand, that was emitting a short, sharp beeping sound at frequent intervals. "Luna. We have a problem. A fucking shitshow of a problem. Call everyone. Call everyone now."


	62. Chapter 62: Plan F

Chapter Sixty-Two: Plan F

Sirius

November 1979, some hill somewhere, as if Sirius cares

Sirius has never liked waiting. He was never allowed on stakeouts or any kind of reconnaissance mission, he'd always attacked Snape first, he'd even made a countdown board for James and Lily's wedding. And now, he was having to wait. He hated waiting.

"All we've got to do is wait for the others," said Luna. "They'll be along soon enough."

"It's the Malfoy Manor one," said Sirius, staring down at the stone that still beeped periodically in his hand. "Of course it's the Malfoy Manor one."

"For all we know, it could be an error." Luna was attempting to be reassuring, but it didn't bloody help. Regulus would never have cast the spells wrong. He would have practiced multiple times at home, and then double and triple checked them once he'd cast them. Regulus did many things, but he didn't make mistakes.

"It isn't."

"I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. Something that I find myself saying rather a lot. I wonder if it's optimism or whether it's a sign I need to update my ways of thinking. What do you think?" Luna was twisting her hair up into a bun on the top of her head as she spoke.

"We can't check any of the others, in case there's someone watching them. But it isn't any of the others. It's Malfoy Manor. It's that stone."

"It's going to all work out some way or another," said Luna, placing a reassuring hand on his arm. "I think Regulus will be fine."

"Is that a prophecy, or can you travel in time?"

He could have sworn that her hand had gone to her neck, as if to look for something, but it must have been a trick or something.

"Oh look," she said, instead. "There's Hermione. And Remus. And Ginny, I think."

"Can't be any way it's the Hogwarts one," said Ginny, grimly, telling them all what they already knew.

"We just have to wait for Regulus," said Sirius. "We just have to wait."

Sirius was no good at waiting. He paced up and down, up and down, on the limited flat space on the hill they'd chosen to gather on. It might have been beautiful if he'd had time to look; when they'd decided on here as an emergency meeting place Hermione had told them about the time she'd come here on a walking holiday with her parents. They'd eaten Kendal Mint Cake at the top, and taken a photograph. Hermione's Memory Charm would later remove herself from the photo. Even the good memories turned to shite.

The hill now was rough and stony, a patchwork of mud and short, worn grass. Paths lead down in three directions, one towards each of the clusters of houses visible if one bothered to look down. Remus and Hermione sat on the bench, Luna on a large rock beside it. The three of them were deep in conversation, and all of them were shooting him looks.

"Calm down," said Ginny, popping up beside him. "You look like a Niffler that can't decide what to dig up first."

"You look like a teacher," said Sirius, which didn't feel like the right response. "Where's Regulus?"

"Dunno." Ginny patted his arm, another person attempting to reassure him. None of it helped. None of it, for a start, quelled the urge to run out there and save his brother. "He's probably in more danger if he just suddenly disappears."

It was logical, that statement, but it didn't help. Sirius shook Ginny off and resumed his pacing, around her, as she'd decided not to move.

"If it's all going to go down, maybe we should have another go at the Patronus," she said, her hand on her jumper-clad hip. As if trying to learn an impossible spell would help right now.

He kicked a stone instead, which skipped off merrily down the hill. He kicked another.

"Would help if you'd talk, you know," said Ginny. "I do remember what it's like, waiting for a brother to come back from some possibly deadly fool's errand that he's taken upon himself."

"Shit."

"Yeah. I could be projecting, but you want to storm in there, but you don't know where exactly he is, or if it's the worst possible time and trying to help cold get him killed. You don't know what he's doing, if he's coping, just about surviving, if he's in enemy hands. You don't know whether, if the worst happens, you'll even hear about it. It could be he's been dead a while already, for all you know."

"We spoke to him yesterday."

"You don't know how he might come back changed."

"You're projecting, Gin. Again."

But she wasn't, not really. He kicked a third stone down the hill.

"It's bollocks to be so worried," he said, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. "He's clever. He knows the plan. He's not going to do anything stupid, because he isn't me. But he's there, and I only just found him again. I only just saved him from certain death, and now I'm letting him stay in danger. His Occlumency could fail. He could be stupid enough to try and check the library. Someone could know something, or, I know what that nest of vipers is like, someone could try to frame him anyway. And I can't help."

"His Occlumency has always been fine in the past, and he's been using a Pensive to dump memories. Someone's always trying to frame someone else, and it's just as likely they'd pick to frame Snape or Avery or some other idiot. Regulus would never be stupid enough to try to check the library, not now that he knows there's someone watching." She began to pick at the sleeve of her jumper, one of her own knits, a fair-isle concoction with several obvious mistakes in the pattern. It was a Remus habit, to pick like that, one he'd possessed since before Hogwarts, and now apparently hers.

"And," she continued, "as the youngest sibling, it isn't the older one's responsibility to protect us. We're adults too. We made the decision to be in this just as much as you did."

"I only just got him back."

"I know."

Sirius abruptly stopped his pacing and sat down on the floor.

"I'm not going to say he's going to be fine," said Ginny, sitting down beside him. "Because we all know that sort of promise is useless. But he's not the man he was when he chose to walk to his death a few months ago. He wants to survive. He's going to do his bit to bring down Tom Riddle, and we're going to help him by being there for when he gets here. Yeah?"

"Okay."

"My motivational speech would have sounded better if you'd said 'yeah' at the end, there."

Sirius couldn't help but laugh.

His laughter was interrupted by a Patronus swooping in, a graceful bird gliding with its wings outstretched. A raven. Not one he recognised.

"I am safe," it said, in his brother's voice. "I think it unwise that you contact me, but trust that I am safe. The Dark Lord has not yet called, but my Mark suggests he will soon. I will endeavour to join you as soon as I can, or else send word by some means." The raven turned to look directly at Sirius with it's unnerving beady eyes. "Brother, do not do anything stupid."

It was gone.

"That's that," he said, acutely aware of the rest of them staring at him. "He's fine. You heard him. Back to the planning. Or the waiting. Chop chop."

"You don't have to be alright, you know," said Ginny, as he got up with the aim to go and do something. "We all know you're not."

Sirius said nothing at all.

With little else to do, and being reluctant to hang around at the hill any longer, they Apparated back to Saltburn in turn. Five little pops of Apparition, where there should be six. Sirius half hoped Regulus would be back at the house, waiting for them, despite the fact that it had been Regulus' idea to have a meeting place that had no connection to any of them, in case of infiltration. And it was his idea that, even when they'd barely been apart a few seconds, they still had to do their security questions over again. It was over-the-top. But then, this was the danger time.

"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked, choosing a seat on the sofa beside him as Remus and Ginny combined themselves into a pile in the armchair, and Luna took the beanbag.

"How do you think?" The idea of rehashing everything with each one of them, with their concerned faces and their reassuring looks that didn't mean anything as they didn't bloody know, made him want to get up and walk off. Or run. Or Apparate straight to his brother. Except he'd promised not to do anything stupid. "Sorry," he said. "I'm shit."

"No," she said, kneeling on the sofa and beginning to pull pieces of parchment and the flipchart paper down off the walls. "It's shit. And we're all going to feel worse if we just sit here. We're going to enact Plan F. That's what Regulus will assume, in this situation. It's what we agreed."

Hermione had spent weeks on these plans, crouched over books and paper and maps. They'd all helped, if Remus and Regulus and Luna more than him and Ginny, and Hermione had attempted to insist that they memorised all of them. Sirius vaguely remembered plan A as being a sensible, measured approach for when they had all of their Kneazles in a row, and therefore, highly unlikely to ever have been used. B and C had been similar, D an utter disaster that had only been kept as, as Ginny put it 'it has a singular redeeming feature'. E he couldn't remember at all. But F was the one that put Regulus in the most danger, and it was the one he'd tried to Incendio once.

"No," he said, frantically wishing he'd memorised all of her plans. "No, that's the one I said we should never use."

"It's Regulus it affects most," she said, pausing half-on and half-off the sofa rearranging parchment on the floor. "And he suggested it."

"My brother," said Sirius, with pain in his voice, even though he was trying to sound sensible and neutral and as if this was based on probability and fact rather than a horrible, pit-of-the-stomach feeling that this was going to be terrible, "my brother tried to walk to his fucking death once already. Do we trust him not to do the same thing again?"

"He's in a very different place," said Hermione, her voice calm in contrast to his. "He wants to survive. And he thinks this is going to work, so I don't understand why you don't. Much as we'd all prefer he wasn't, I suppose, he's the expert on Voldemort."

"He's eighteen."

"He's of age. And, granted, it isn't ideal, but Harry wasn't even that when he had to kill Voldemort. Ron and I were eighteen during all of that. Ginny wasn't even of age. If you're the one that can do it, you do it, regardless of the age. Or should Dumbledore have refused you admittance to the Order because you were eighteen?"

"That was entirely different!"

"It wasn't, and you know it."

Sirius stood up, sending half of the sheets on the floor skittering across it. It wasn't for his brother to do, any of this. He'd saved his brother.

"Sit down," said Remus, calmly. "We're going to sort this out like rational adults. Because we all are, whether we're eighteen or twenty-one or however old Sirius is these days. Thirty-seven?"

"Thirty-eight," Sirius corrected, still standing in the middle of the room with half of Plan H crushed under his foot, sheets of paper covered with Hermione's tiny handwriting. His wand was half-drawn, for reasons he couldn't quite remember, other than that he was going to save his brother. He'd had his birthday the other week. They'd all ignored it, because that's what he'd told them to do. "Thirty-eight."

"Well," said Remus, seeming unconcerned, either way. "Regulus is an adult, and so are you. If this is going to work, we have to work together. We have to accept that we're all prepared to take a risk. However much someone else might not want us to."

Ginny nodded at that, and Sirius remembered that several of the plans involved her doing something that some would describe as reckless, or Remus doing it, or Hermione or Luna. Or him, but Sirius didn't mind about that.

Hermione might, he supposed. He hadn't asked her.

He sat down then and there, squashing the remains of plan H and some of the half-done Plan I. Hermione was nothing if not thorough - she'd kept all of the half-written and rejected plans, there were variations on the completed ones for likely things that could go wrong, there was even an exhaustive list of supplies they'd need in case of emergency. He was certain that all of the things would be stored somewhere in the house, and possibly also in the black bag she'd taken to lugging everywhere in recent weeks.

"I hate it when you're right," he said, mostly to Remus.

"Plan F," he merely said. "I assume we all memorised it like Hermione asked?"

Hermione handed out neatly written copies of the plan, duplicated by magic and with the pertinent parts for each of them coloured in with a funny yellow pen she liked to use. Sirius cast his eyes over his. He hadn't memorised it, no, but he remembered most of it anyway.

"The cup," he said. "It assumes we know about the cup, and we don't. There's still a potential Horcrux out there."

Hermione began scrabbling around on the floor for more bits of parchment, as Luna pulled a pear from her pocket and started to eat it. Ginny and Remus, meanwhile, both started. Ginny leapt from the chair and started towards the window; Remus went for his wand.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" Hermione was distracted, in the middle of her paper search. But Sirius thought he'd heard something, too.

"Outside." Remus and Ginny crept closer to the windows, and Sirius drew his own wand and went to the door. "I heard Apparition," she said.

"There must be another witch or wizard in the area," Sirius said, as he settled next to the door. "It's logically not any sort of attack."

"There's not. I've checked all the records. There's not a single registered witch or wizard in this town." Remus' wand was steady as he peered through the curtains. "They're out there, you know."

"Taboo," said Ginny. "They did it in our future. They've put a Taboo on a the word for what we're going to destroy."

"How do you know?" Remus asked.

"Just a guess" said Ginny, raising her wand as the front door came in, and Death Eaters filled the house.

Regulus

November 1979, Grimmauld Place

It appeared to Regulus that, each time that he decided he had done the most dangerous, the most ill-advised thing that he was going to be required to do, he would end up becoming entangled in yet another dangerous, ill-advised thing. If it was personal safety that he desired, he was certainly not making wise choices.

But there it was.

"Kreacher," he said, and the elf arrived instantly. "Fetch me Grandfather's Pensive, if you will."

"Yes, Master Regulus, Kreacher will be doing that right away."

The elf disappeared again, and Regulus felt strangely alone.

It was not as if he was not comfortable by himself. He had always felt rather at peace alone in his room as a child, and more so when he was at Hogwarts. He had always supposed it was merely because Sirius was not able to cause trouble there. At this moment, Sirius' presence would have been comforting.

Well, it would not be, because it would spark such a terrible reaction from his mother.

Instead he began to tidy up, shifting things around in his childhood room. On marriage he had moved into a more appropriate room, of course, hoping to one day allow his child to sleep in this very room. He had planned to pack his childhood things, but he had never done it.

"Master Pollux's Pensive, young Master. And your wife."

"Thank you, Kreacher. When I leave, you will hide this. Do not allow anyone to find it, except in the event of my death, in which case you will ensure that Lyra receives the contents. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master Regulus. Kreacher will be going now, Kreacher thinks. Much cleaning."

The elf disappeared, leaving Regulus alone with his wife. Something he had almost, perhaps, dreaded in the beginning, and now was beginning to enjoy. But it was not as if there was much time for that. Sirius had alerted him to Voldemort's discovery of the missing Horcrux, and his left forearm with it's Mark had begun to ache several hours before. If he had raised the sleeve of his robe, he would no doubt see the Mark begin to darken, but Regulus did not need to see it to know what it was that was about to happen. At this precise moment, it would be Abraxas Malfoy that would be feeling the wrath of the Dark Lord. In a few short minutes, hours, or perhaps days, it would no doubt be all of his followers. And Regulus was well aware of the plan; he was well aware of the part he would have to play.

"Something's happening," said Adeline, sitting down on his childhood bed and beginning to leaf through the pile of photographs Regulus was yet to sort. One of himself and Sirius was on the top, aged perhaps five and six, in matching navy robes. The one below did not feature Sirius, but an older, awkward Regulus sandwiched between his parents, after the rift. "You're about to do something."

"Yes," said Regulus, for as much as he wished to protect her he had given up lying to his wife. "The Dark Lord will soon call me, and he will not be in a mood that I wish to witness. I must be prepared." He did not have to tell the full truth, to not lie.

"You're planning something bigger than that though, aren't you? You only come up here when you're about to do something ridiculous."

"Ridiculous," he said, "is debatable. Inadvisable, certainly."

"I want to help," she said. She was holding a third photograph now, this one featuring Andromeda. Regulus had been sure all of those photographs had been destroyed. "I want to do something, not just sit here waiting for you all to act."

"Is that wise?"

"I don't know," she said. "Is you doing what you're doing wise?"

He sat down beside her. "I do what I must," he said. "I was brought up to do as I must."

"I was brought up to pay attention to the wishes of my husband. And so if we are taking the route of doing what it is that our parents have told us, I should be assisting you in what you're doing." She put her hand on his, on the bed. "I won't be any less in danger than I am now, I expect."

"I cannot let you put yourself in danger."

"If you are discovered, do you think the Dark Lord will go lightly on me? Perhaps you can hope, but I do not think it likely."

It was a point, and one that Regulus found himself unable to ignore. To have her in danger filled him with dread; her, and the baby too. To lose one or both of them did not bear thinking of. But then, did he not need all the help that he could get?

"There will be something I can do, I'm sure," she said.

Regulus reached into his pocket for the enchanted coin that Hermione had given him. It had grown hot just a few hours ago with the news that the Malfoy Manor Horcrux had been located, and again, an hour past, with the news that they would, as he had supposed that they would, be using Plan F. Regulus had burnt the planning documents, but they were as ingrained in his memory as his sorting at Hogwarts was.

"Don't you want Gryffindor?" the Hat had asked. "You could be with your brother. You could be your own person. I could see that you would thrive there."

"No," Regulus had told the Hat, firmly. He'd promised his mother, however much he wanted to be like his brother. "I wish for Slytherin."

"It isn't as if you won't do well there, either," the Hat had said, and had shouted the result to the entire school. Three minutes the Hat had been on his head, and Regulus had resolved to forget those three minutes. It was not as if he ever could.

He turned the coin over in his hand, wondering if, indeed, this was the right course of action. It was possible that Adeline would be safer, there, in a group of others, not here at Grimmauld Place where, if the Dark Lord was to call, Regulus' mother would let him in with a smile. There was the matter of the cup. Adeline could be of help there, perhaps.

"I am going to contact Lyra," he said. "You will not go into a fight, if there is to be one. But we will find you a way to be of assistance."

She almost looked relieved, as he said that. Regulus thought that he understood.

"I never had an interest in fighting," she said, "not before I met you. Maybe without you I would have been happy to have left it alone. To have thought that the Dark Lord was wrong, to have been uncomfortable with what it was he planned, but to have ignored it. I don't know. Is that terrible?"

"I joined him," Regulus replied. "I think that is far worse a crime than having been content to ignore his rise."

She smiled, softly, sadly, and squeezed his hand. His wife. She was truly beautiful, and perhaps the best wife he could have had, even if he had been given a free choice of all of the witches in Britain. He felt a pang for Francis, at that. In a different world, in one where he had taken the Sorting Hat's offer of Gryffindor, he perhaps would have married Francis. They would have had that life he spoke of, of the two of them and perhaps a Kneazle.

But Francis was dead, and he was here, with Adeline, and they would fight together, and they would do it for Francis and for the rest of the people Regulus should have been brave enough to have saved.

"We have to do what we can now, then," she said. "To make up for what we did before."

Regulus tapped the coin three times with his wand, sending the message. Once he was certain that it had sent, he handed the coin to Adeline.

"It will become warm when the message is returned," he explained. "Go to where it tells you."

"Alright. Where are you going?"

"I anticipate the Dark Lord's call." He felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle at that, his body's reaction to what it was he would have to do. He shuddered. He would do what he must.

"I see. I love you."

"And I love you."

They sat in silence for a while. Regulus did not feel the need to talk, and, apparently, she did not either.

It was then that his Mark burnt, the feeling of fire coursing into his blood and through his bone. He had once found this feeling exciting. That was no longer the case.

"I must go," he said, as he stood. "I will return. Or, at the very least, I will try."

"Good."

And as if this was any normal parting, as opposed to one that felt so much more significant, he leant down and kissed her, and then, he left.

Regulus paused before the Apparition, however. He took the moment to breathe, as much as anything else, and to order his mind. He checked the fall of his cloak and brushed the smallest speck of lint from his robes. He must, after all, look the part as much as he would act it. And he must not delay too long.

Each Death Eater in the room acted as if this were some normal summons, and so Regulus took their lead. He decided, as a way to occupy his mind, to seek out Avery. It would do well to be seen to be following Severus Snape's lead, as to who may be a traitor. It would avoid suspicion.

He must not think of even that.

"Nice to see you," said Avery, nodding at Regulus as he approached. "It's been a while."

"I have been rather busy," said Regulus, which was not a lie. "My wife is pregnant, my work at the Ministry only seems to increase, and our Lord has ever more need of me. But then, I would not wish for anything else."

"Indeed," said Avery, with a flicker of something akin to annoyance. "I'm glad one of us is seeing some action. Not that I would question our Lord's wisdom, no, but I've been doing less than ever. I'm ready for something that isn't worrying at the heels of Mudbloods."

"Our time will come." Regulus was certain of that, at least. "Perhaps the Dark Lord plans something for us tonight. It is a while since our last meeting."

"He's called the lot of us," said Avery, glancing around the room, "except for a few. Snape's not here, and neither's Nott, or Bellatrix. I can't see Crabbe and Goyle, either, but might be that they're late. Not the brightest of the bunch, they're not, and I'd not be surprised if they hadn't yet worked out what the Lord thinks of latecomers. But Bellatrix Lestrange hasn't been late a day in her life." Avery glanced around again. "And Abraxas Malfoy, come to that. His grandson was born, indeed, but that's no excuse."

"They will be on business, like as not." But Regulus filed the information away. Anything could prove to be crucial. He found himself pressed into a flock of Death Eaters, making small talk in the main, and little distracted him from the feeling of dread that twisted in his stomach. In truth he felt as if he may vomit. He knew what it was he had to do; he had written this plan. But no amount of preparation would be enough, and, certainly, no amount of it would quell the urge to run. "Neither my cousin nor Abraxas Malfoy would ever give the Dark Lord cause to doubt their loyalty."

But to hide from the Dark Lord would be next to impossible. And it would not protect his wife, or his brother, and it would not make up for Francis' death. It would do nothing except put himself in the line of the Dark Lord's wand.

Of course, it was entirely possible that this would happen anyway.

The Dark Lord swept into the room, and it was clear from the first sound of his footsteps, always quiet, that something was bitterly, terribly wrong. Regulus made certain to empty his mind. He could not be caught. He possessed the advantage in that he knew what it was that was wrong, but he could not know. He had removed enough of his memory that what exactly he knew was fuzzy. The faces and names of those he sought to protect disappeared from him when he tried to focus in on them; all except those he could not erase. Sirius. Adeline. Francis. Two of them were treason enough, but if he removed all of it he would not remember his task.

"My faithful," said the Dark Lord, as each member of his circle shuffled and slotted into their places. "My most loyal. My friends. You are those that I have chosen to be alongside me on my journey. There are many who would have had their chance to stand here, but they were not worthy. I admit it, there are some who I wished to recruit to stand amongst you, but who resisted my call. They are dead. The Dark Lord tolerates no fools, and, certainly, no traitors to the cause. But you are all true to me, are you not?"

There was a murmured collection of yeses and affirmations as the Dark Lord walked the inside of the circle. Burke fell to his knees as the Dark Lord passed, reaching for the hem of his robes as if to kiss his clothes. Walden MacNair, when approached, began to offer his full loyalty. But the Dark Lord did not pay him any heed. Instead, he approached Regulus, and stopped in front of him, and looked directly into his eyes. The Dark Lord's eyes were red, Regulus realised, as he made eye contact in return, and he was certain that they had not been a week prior.

"Regulus Black," said the Dark Lord, in a quiet, soft, honeyed voice that nonetheless carried across the room with ease. "There is a traitor amongst us. I told you as much. And now, the traitor, he has acted. An item of mine, a heirloom of sorts, a link through the generations between the Dark Lord and Salazar Slytherin himself, has been stolen from a place I believed to be safe. I have killed it's guardian, naturally. I trusted in Abraxas Malfoy. I wish to be able to trust all of you. And it saddens me, it does in truth, to have to kill someone I believed to be loyal to me."

"Malfoy is not the traitor," said Regulus, retaining the eye contact with the red eyes. They made him appear more powerful, dangerous, a man to be feared. "That," he said, slowly, forcing the bile from his throat, "would be the role of Walden MacNair."

Regulus did not tear his eyes from the Dark Lord, so he did not see the reaction of the man across the circle from him, but he heard enough.

"My Lord," came MacNair's strained voice. "I would never, I have never, I'm loyal, I promise you!"

"Silencio." With a flick of the Dark Lord's wand behind his back, MacNair fell silent. "That is an interesting accusation, Regulus Black."

"It is the truth."

It was some semblance of a truth. MacNair had done some things the Lord had ordered should not happen.

"And," Regulus, continued, feeling as if a knife twisted into his gut as he spoke, "I can lead you to the people he has associated himself with. Dangerous witches and wizards my Lord, members of the Order of the Phoenix and others who would bring you down. I have been tracking them, and I would have come to you tonight as it was, my Lord, but you called before I could do so. I can lead you to the traitors."

"The traitors. Yes. Would that you had come to me earlier, because I have apprehended traitors myself."

Regulus' palms were beginning to sweat. He swallowed the rising tide of bile in his throat. They could not be the same traitors, for how would he know of them.

"Not all of them, I regret to say. But two. And perhaps two is enough. Perhaps two will jog MacNair's memory, at the very least."

And before Regulus could do or say anything, before he could come up with any kind of plan for any of the possible situations this could be, the doors to the room opened once again with a flick of the Dark Lord's wand. And in came two witches that he very much recognised, as they were those who he had intended to name as the traitors. Pandora Lovegood and Philomena Prewett. The Prewett girl had a bloody face and a split lip, scowling at the assembled as she was led into the hall by Severus Snape. The other seemed not to understand what it was that was happening, wandering in at wandpoint. Bellatrix preceded them, her face a crowing sort of happiness.

This had not been the plan, and Regulus had to be careful even what it was he allowed himself to think. He could not even push at the memories of these two, other than those he had permitted himself to keep.

"I am pleased they are captured."

"As am I, Regulus. As are we all, I am sure. MacNair." Finally, the Dark Lord's gaze was gone from Regulus and he was walking across the circle, away from Regulus, allowing him the space to think at least somewhat more openly. "Are these your traitor friends?"

Regulus allowed his wand the tiniest flick as he cast his spell. Unforgivable, yes, but in defence of his family and his friends, it seemed less so.

"They are, my Lord." MacNair kept his head low, a stammer allowed to only slightly enter his voice. "I've been working with them to bring you down."

"And what do you know? What have you done for them? Are you the ringleader, or are you the pawn? Answer me. Crucio."

Even under the Imperius Curse, a man felt the pain of the Cruciatus, it transpired. As did the caster, although, perhaps, that was guilt.

The curse subsided, but MacNair did not move off the floor.

"Never mind," said the Dark Lord. "Whatever it is you have done, you do not deserve to live. Avada Kedavra." And he was dead, and Regulus knew that even though he had not cast the spell, it was he who had killed Walden MacNair. And it was MacNair who had cast the spells that had killed Francis, in turn, and who had done many other things that meant he did not deserve Regulus' sympathy. He had not stolen what it was the Dark Lord looked for.

"A waste," said the Dark Lord, looking down at the corpse. "But he was not intelligent enough to have been the ringleader, and this is the price of betrayal. Is it not?"

"Yes, my Lord," came from several mouths around the circle, but only a few looked directly at the scene.

"And now, these two. These two are of far more interest to me. I would speak with them alone. You will leave, now. Yes, you too, Bella, but not you, Regulus. You will stay."

The rest of the Death Eaters filed from the hall, and Regulus was left with approximately a minute, or perhaps a minute and a half, to work out what it was he ought to do next.


	63. Chapter 63: Flames

**Chapter 63: Flames**

 _Remus_

 _November 1979, Thetford Abbey_

"Bollocks," he swore, landing in a heap in one of their designated safe places and immediately leaping to his feet, ignoring the swell of blood that was coming from his arm. A minor Splinch, maybe, or something from the fight, but, frankly, it didn't fucking matter. He'd lost Ginny - he'd lost all of them, and now he was here.

With a crack Sirius appeared next to him, the older Sirius, the one who'd been there when they'd been discovered. Remus had to keep them straight. Sirius wasn't bleeding or showing any signs of a fight, but something was strangely vacant in his eyes, as he was somewhere else entirely. He shook his head, almost trying to shake something off, and then wheeled around wildly, his wand outstretched. His hand shook slightly, as he pushed his hair out of his face, facing Remus. He cast several quick spells around them, checking for intruders probably. And then his attention turned to Remus.

"I don't want to accuse you of being a traitor," he said, pointing his wand directly at Remus' chest while his eyes still scanned the area around them. His voice shook. "I don't want to."

"I'm not," Remus responded, keeping his own wand out. Lower than Sirius', yes, but out. Just in case. "You heard Ginny. It's a Taboo. She's told us about them before. It's the word that brought them to us. You heard her." He was trying to be calming, but even he could hear that it wasn't coming across that way.

This had happened before, the accusations. For Sirius, if not for him. Sirius had believed Remus to be a traitor, then, and people had died. But Remus wasn't. He hadn't been then, he wouldn't be then, and he wasn't now. He'd never be a traitor; didn't Sirius see that?

"Calm down," he said, continuing talking when Sirius didn't respond, reaching his hand out into the space between himself and the wide-eyed, frantic Sirius. He spoke as calmly and as softly as he could, trying to rid his voice of the quaver. Trying to fill the silence. It wasn't the first time he'd had to talk Sirius down from something, he could do this. "I'm not a traitor. Nobody was a traitor. You've heard their story more times than I have, Hermione's, Luna's and Ginny's. You know what he was capable of before, and he's capable of it now." Remus didn't know if he wanted to say the next part. It could easily backfire, and, besides, it didn't seem fair. "Sirius. Look. You made this mistake before. Don't make it again."

"That's what a traitor would say," said Sirius, but he lowered his wand. Not entirely, but enough. "I believe you," he said. Remus had to hope that he did. "I want to believe you. Hermione says we need to trust each other."

"We need to find everyone else," said Remus. "We need to know what's going on."

"Yeah."

"The coins," said Remus, fishing in his pocket for his own with his non-wand hand. His wand he kept aloft, not pointed at Sirius, but in the direction of everything else. They'd been caught unawares - well, it felt like hours, but it was probably a few minutes ago - then, and they wouldn't be caught again. "And we need to be careful what we say. Because I think Ginny's theory is right."

"It would make sense," Sirius allowed. "As much as any of this ever does. Fuck. Where's Hermione? Where's Luna? Ginny?"

"They'll be fine," said Remus, even though it was the last thing he felt. They'd almost certainly not be fine. Or, more accurately, somebody wouldn't. Ginny always accused him of pessimism, and perhaps she was correct, but it had always felt like someone wouldn't come out of this alive.

The coin was already warm when he pulled it from his pocket, so he tapped it eagerly with his wand to read the communication from the others. Except it wasn't from any of the people he expected it to be from, but from Regulus.

 _Adeline wishes to help. Send address to coin._

Quite what Remus was going to do with the help of a pregnant woman who was married to a Death Eater and probably terrified of werewolves, he had no idea.

"Can't send a Patronus," he muttered, half to himself and half to Sirius, "so we'd better hope they haven't lost these."

"Lost mine," said Sirius, who also didn't seem to be wearing any shoes, his toes bare against the dirt and stones of the ground. The ruins of the old abbey stood around them, the beginnings of walls and the ends of towers. A sign stated that they stood in the old dining hall. "It's in my jacket. Which is on that infernal coat-rack."

"We'll just have to stick together then," said Remus, much more confidently than he felt. Because the plan had always been to assemble here, if anything happened, number six of the safe-places he and Hermione had once scouted out. And here they were, him and Sirius, and there was a lack of anybody else. Bollocks, indeed.

They might yet arrive, he told himself. They could be here any minute.

"We need the others," said Sirius. "But I do have these." And he produced from his pocket the bag full of the Horcruxes. Remus wasn't going to risk saying the word aloud, so he nodded at the bag instead. Sirius seemed to understand. They almost seemed to emit evil from them, even though to the eye it was just a plain bag, but Remus could feel them. Like they were fighting to return to their owner.

"Hermione says he needs to feel remorse," said Remus, slowly. "If he's going to make them part of himself again."

"He won't." Sirius shoved the bag back down into his pocket, trying for looking casual, but his eyes were still wide and he still looked around the countryside constantly, dark as it was, hoping he'd see someone, anyone. "He can't."

"So we need to destroy those," said Remus, with a nod towards Sirius' pocket. "And find the others. And enact the plan."

"And not die," said Sirius. "Not fucking die."

Not die. It sounded like a good enough aim to Remus.

"You're bleeding," Sirius added, seeming to see that for the first time. With a flick of his wand, he stemmed the flow of the blood, leaving a sizeable, if shallow, dent in Remus' arm. Remus rubbed it, almost without paying attention. "Better?"

"Yeah. Do you think he'll know if we burn them?"

"No fucking clue. No time like the present to find out."

Loathe as Remus was for the two of them to separate, he was reluctant to Apparate even after Sirius' amateur healing, so he sent Sirius off to check the other safe places and began the process of getting the Horcruxes ready to burn. The bag was left in his custody, and now it was in his own pocket, a feeling of dread in a pocket-sized little parcel. He was the worst person to have it, he thought, the one who, with the full moon approaching, would have the least resistance to it's call.

But they had to burn, so burn they would.

At the sudden crack he whirled around, the stone he was levitating crashing to the ground. Sirius' paranoia had got to him, that was his thought when he saw that it was Hermione, and he went to lower his wand almost instantly. But that wasn't what Sirius would do.

"The last thing Hermione Granger said to me," he said, keeping his wand raised. "The last time it was just the two of us in the house."

"If you think I am an imposter," she said, raising her own wand, "I might have already been then."

"Answer it." He was better at challenging her than he had been with Sirius; his voice more forceful and steady.

"It'll be a miracle if we all come through it," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "But maybe that's the price we have to pay."

"And I agreed," he said, lowering his wand, as she did in mirror with him. "The closer it gets to the moment of reckoning, as it were, the less I'm certain I believe that."

"Worst bit," she said, with certainty. "Been here before."

"I don't envy you for that."

"Where are the others? Sirius?" Her eyes searched him for an answer, but Remus didn't have much of one to give. He'd been hoping she'd give him answers. Apparently not.

"Luna and Ginny, no idea. Hoped they were with you. Sirius has gone to check the other meeting places."

"Okay." She looked slightly encouraged by this news. "I went to number four by mistake. Had to steady myself before another Apparition. Hopefully Luna and Ginny did something similar. Come on. We'd better start something useful. Are you preparing to burn the Horcruxes? It isn't my favourite of our plans for them, but, you're right, it probably fits in best with where we are. Let me do that, you go down the hill and begin the security enchantments."

Remus wished he could be as optimistic.

He was only a few feet away when he heard her swear and drop a rock of her own.

"Shit," she said, her wand raised, her jumper burnt to a crisp down one side, the rock on the floor on her feet. "We almost forgot about the cup. We have to get it. Now."

Remus could only nod in agreement.

 _Ginny_

 _November 1979, Riddle House_

This was a fucking disaster, make no mistake.

There were four of them in the great dining room, if you didn't count the dead body of MacNair, and, somehow, Ginny didn't. There was a bloody high chance there'd be at least one more dead body on the floor here, before all of this was done. And there was an awful lot she wanted to say, but, of course, she could say none of it, so she kept quiet.

And hoped to hell that someone else had a plan, because hers was to punch Voldemort in the face and run for it. And that was a terrible plan by every single account. Somehow, none of Hermione's carefully written documents had accounted for this fucking scenario, surprisingly, given that Hermione had found herself in a not-to-dissimilar one before. Somebody should have thought of this. Somebody should have had a plan.

Ginny wondered if she could somehow summon Dobby. If Dobby was born yet.

"I thank you, Regulus," said Voldemort, circling Luna and Ginny like a carrion bird. They were wandless, except Regulus, and Voldemort had a wand, they'd been silenced by Bellatrix, spells holding them in place. Ginny's face was bleeding, and Luna had sustained some sort of curse damage. She listed slightly to the left, staring vacantly at a point somewhere over Regulus' shoulder, even more vacantly than Luna's usual face. None of them were in ideal fighting condition. "I thank you for what you have done for me in rooting out our traitor. I expect little, and less of people such as these, perhaps, but rather more of MacNair. It is of no matter. I value all of my friends, of course, but I can survive without them, can I not?"

"I aim to be of service," said Regulus, inclining his head in what Ginny supposed was supposed to be respect. She raised her own, a jut of her chin in defiance. Buy Regulus some time. "I wish only to please you, my Lord."

"Good."

He circled once more. Ginny tried to look as though he didn't terrify her.

"You are the girl who killed Lucius Malfoy," Voldemort said, stopping directly in front of her. Ginny allowed his eye contact. She could do this. "A member of the Order of the Phoenix. I hear that you are involved with Dumbledore's pet werewolf. Perhaps you would enjoy an encounter with mine. No?" With a flick of his wand

"No," said Ginny, as firmly as she could manage.

"As you wish. Except it is not. It is as I wish."

The urge to punch him in the face resurfaced. She allowed that one past her Occlumency, triggering a laugh from Voldemort. His laugh was horrific. Lower than the high laugh he'd had after his resurrection, but no less horrible.

"I do not think that any of you in this room are faster than I. But I do appreciate an opponent with courage, however misplaced. Perhaps I will reward you with Fenrir after all."

It wouldn't get to that point, Ginny told herself. Something would happen before then.

"And you," he continued, turning his gaze to Luna, "are unimportant." He raised his wand, and Regulus looked as if he would step between them.

"My Lord," he said, instead, shifting only slightly on to the balls of his feet, his body preventing himself from moving forwards. "My evidence suggests that she knows the most of all of them."

"Is that so?"

"MacNair met with her. I know that much to be true. I know that they muttered of the word Horcrux." Regulus couldn't see Voldemort's face, so he couldn't see the way that his eyes widened when the word was mentioned, but he definitely could have seen the tensing in his shoulders. Ginny thought Regulus was on dangerous ground. He could be killed even for saying that. But he carried on regardless, because of course he would. "It seemed significant. This was two nights ago. And I was determined to speak with you as soon as I had ascertained what it was they knew, and about what. However, it seems that, as ever, my Lord knows far more and far better than I."

"Yes," said Voldemort, his wand still pointed at Luna, who looked as if she didn't know what was going on. "I do always know far more and far better than others, even my most loyal of servants. Exactly what were the whispers you heard from them, Regulus? The Dark Lord must know. I will know."

"I did not hear much, a fact I regret," Regulus began, Voldemort turning to face him. Regulus held eye contact with the git remarkably well, Ginny thought, as he told his tale of lies. Well enough that she wondered if they ought to have trusted him. He'd turned tail on Voldemort. What if he'd turn tail on them, too? Or had only pretended to?

He couldn't be pretending to. He'd died for this before. He believed in this, didn't he?

Luna seemed to be winking. Ginny had no time for that. Regulus was still talking, and Voldemort still had his wand out, and he was listening to a story that could go wrong at any moment in time, and Ginny still had no fucking plan.

"I heard only that they plot against you. MacNair believes that he knows the key to killing you, my Lord, and I, of course, aimed only to prevent them from doing so. My loyalty is to you, first and foremost. It just did not seem like information I could bring to you as yet - I thought that you would say it far more useful to have the information than to have killed them for their crimes against you. And so I followed them. I had my house-elf follow them. He heard nothing, my Lord, and I heard little more. Only that they plot against you, that they believe in the existence of something called a Horcrux, and that they muttered of caves. That must be where their hideout is, my Lord, or that is the logical explanation. They know that you will find out all, and they would not dare hide in anywhere known to you."

"Yes," said Voldemort, again, slowly, and he lowered his wand from pointing at Luna's chest. "Information. You are not wrong, Regulus, and you must have assumed correctly, I believe. A hideout in a cave. The Dark Lord does not deal in caves, of course. And you do not lie to me. There is information I could get from these."

Ginny was halfway through a sigh of relief when Voldemort wheeled back around, and his wand pointed at the pair of them again.

"Which of them would have the information?" he asked, almost to nobody at all. Luna was still winking, in a rhythm that might have meant something to her but certainly didn't to Ginny. Ginny hoped Voldemort picked her; she honestly didn't think Luna was in any state to survive what was almost certainly going to be a Cruciatus Curse. Honestly, it was like the man only know a few spells.

" _Crucio,"_ said Voldemort, with an almost lazy flick of his wand. Ginny braced herself for the impact of the spell, but it wasn't her that it hit. It was Luna that fell to the floor with the impact of the spell, twisting around but not making a sound. The Silencing spells, Ginny realised, and not because it didn't hurt.

Ginny finally came up with a plan.

"No!" she shouted, trying to twist herself out of the spells that held her, to little effect. "I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! The truth, all of it, I promise!"

Voldemort raised his wand, leaving Luna still and breathing heavily on the floor.

"Go on," he said. "And remember. The Dark Lord knows if you are lying. He always knows."

"We're trying to kill you," she said, her heart hammering in her chest. This was a gamble - tell enough of the truth that he'd believe it, but not so much that it'd ruin it for them. It'd be throwing them in the fire, if they were where she thought they'd be, but she had to do it. "And I'll tell you everything if you help her." Ginny indicated Luna on the floor. "She needs a Healer. Or at least someone who knows their charms. Get her help, and I'll tell you everything."

Of course this could entirely backfire. Ginny wasn't a planner, hadn't she said this enough times? But she knew where they'd be, and she had to save Luna, and give Hermione and the others enough time to burn the Horcruxes and to have a fighting chance against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. She had to buy time.

"I could get the information from you. I could break her, and in the process you would talk. I could use Legilimency so strong that it would break your mind, little girl. I can, and I will, get this information. So what is it that doing it your way would gain, I ask. What will you give me if I was to take the information without breaking one of you?"

"Information I don't have," said Ginny, trying to look like she was giving in, at least a little. She was a shit actor, and this was a terrible fucking idea, even Regulus didn't approve, she could tell, but it was all that she had. "Nobody knows everything. It's too easy, see, for someone to give in under Crucio. We're weaker than you are. If we knew everything we'd give it up. So we don't. If you keep us alive, I can help you get the information from the others. I can tell you how to find what you've lost. To get it back. You'll be stronger than ever."

"Very well." Voldemort turned away from her as if in disgust. "Regulus. Send someone for Healer. Do not allow these two out of your sight. I will return. I have other business to attend to. The Dark Lord has many and varied demands on his time, and I must return when I can get the information I need. Yes. I will have these traitors, and I will be stronger than ever."

Ginny expected him to sweep away, but instead he Apparated away on the spot, and they were left in the room the three of them, Luna on the floor, her, and Regulus standing exactly where he had been all along with one eyebrow raised.

"I do hope that you have a plan," he said, drily. "And quite how he expects me to summon a Healer without taking my eyes from you, I do not know. I supposed I must do the work myself."

"Enough of one," Ginny replied. "Best you don't know about it. There's enough shit acting here without you having to pretend to be surprised."

"If you insist," said Regulus, as he bent down to Luna. "I am somewhat done with surprises, if I am truthful."

 _Adeline_

 _November 1979, Grimmauld Place_

The silence from the coin must mean something, Adeline decided. Regulus had hurried off into the Dark Lord's presence at speed; there was something certainly very wrong here. She was going to help, if only somebody would tell her what it was that they needed her to do.

She'd never been alone in Regulus' old bedroom, before. He had moved down to a lower floor when she had moved in, a bigger room, more convenient for the rest of the house, a room to signify that he wasn't a child any more. Sometimes it felt like they were. He had only just left Hogwarts. She should still be there, if she hadn't left to marry and have this baby. They shouldn't be thinking of anything like this yet.

Maybe she would go back. Maybe after all of this, she would try for her NEWTs. She couldn't attend classes, but perhaps she could study and do the exams. Her parents had never considered her intelligent enough for that, but Regulus might think enough of her to let her.

Lyra would make her own decisions.

The coin burnt once more, with an address. Adeline picked herself up from the bed, smoothing down her robes. The baby would be alright for all of this. It was the best option she had available to her. Because, as she had frequently tried to explain to Regulus, the Dark Lord would hardly allow her or the baby to live if he discovered exactly what it was that Regulus was up to.

Instead of Apparating directly to the given address, Adeline took herself a quarter of a mile to the south. It would hardly do to arrive in the middle of a trap.

There was little of that when she arrived, only Lyra, and Sirius, Regulus' brother, and a scarred man wearing a threadbare woollen jumper who was introduced to her as Remus Lupin.

"A friend of Regulus'," he said, holding out his hand formally. "If an unusual one."

Adeline supposed that was true.

"We've got two things to do," said Lyra, taking charge, and Adeline assumed this was often the case by the way the two men deferred to her. Sirius took a seat on the remains of a wall, Remus stood on it instead. "The ones in the bag, and to find out about the cup. Regulus was asking questions, but we can't contact Regulus, and, well, we can't contact the others either, but we'll deal with that later. I don't want to leave that 'til later, but they're adults, and charging in somewhere won't necessarily help them."

"However much we want to," said Sirius.

"And what can I help with?" Adeline asked. "Where is this cup that you speak of?"

"Gringotts," said Lyra, with a grimace. "And it's going to be bloody difficult to break in. I'd know, I've done it before."

Sirius elbowed her sharply at that, and Adeline considered protesting at his treatment of her. That was not how someone should treat their witch. But Lyra seemed to take it differently than Adeline would, and so she held her silence.

"Well, I can't see how we're going to get very far without at least referencing it," said Lyra, tersely.

"Better to limit it," Sirius replied. "This is where I think you might be useful, Adeline. Remus hasn't got any money to speak of in his vault," he continued, "and it's best if I don't show up there, for long and complicated reasons, trust me, so I think it'd be best if Lyra and Adeline go. You can go as yourselves."

"And how do they get into the Lestrange vault?" Remus asked. "They don't have the right."

"It's right next door to the Black one," said Sirius. "All of the oldest families have vaults on the lowest level. Malfoy, Fawley," he nodded to Adeline there, "Longbottom, Abbott, Nott, Avery. It's a mark of being properly pure blooded, so, if you didn't get in early enough to get one, you try to get one by some other means."

"I see."

"The Thief's Downfall won't go off," said Lyra. "It's easier to get in if we're not trying to conceal anything at that point."

"Exactly," said Sirius, looking to Adeline's view rather smug. "Except your ultimate intention, of course, but you two are intelligent witches. You'll manage it."

"So what is it we do when we are on the lowest level?" asked Adeline, feeling that perhaps this was an important point.

"Whatever you like," said Sirius, "so long as it gets you into that vault. You know what you're looking for, don't you?"

Lyra nodded. "Seen it before," she explained. "Are you ready? We'd best go while he's busy, if you said Regulus has gone off to him. Hopefully he hasn't sent anyone to guard it already."

"To guard what?"

"Can't say the name. I'll tell you everything when we're done, I promise."

That was a promise Adeline intended to ensure was kept.

They entered Gringotts less than half an hour later, almost at the close of the day. The banking hall was almost empty, with only a handful of witches and wizards finishing up their business. Lyra and Adeline tried not to appear hurried as they crossed the floor towards a nearby goblin. This had to look as if it was a normal visit.

"We wish to visit the Black family vault," said Adeline, her voice loud and clear and confident. The goblin barely moved, which wasn't unusual. They did things at their pace, as frustrating as that may be. "Today," she added, trying for the tone Walburga used to get what she wanted.

"Certainly, Mrs Black. Identification?"

Adeline, still unused to hearing herself referred to like that, handed over her wand. The goblin peered at it, and evidently decided it was satisfactory as he called over another goblin to take them to the vault. It was only as she settled into the cart besides Lyra that Adeline had a sudden, horrible feeling that this was a terrible, terrible idea. She didn't even know what it was she was searching for, and here she was, attempting to defraud the goblins and Regulus' cousin.

Lyra seemed entirely composed, sitting upright in the cart in robes of Adeline's that had been rapidly borrowed for the trip. She'd done this before, supposedly. Adeline had never heard of anyone breaking into Gringotts. She'd heard it was impossible, in fact. And so there were two obvious conclusions; that Lyra was lying, or that there was a lot less truth in the news that one would have you believe.

Somehow, Adeline didn't think that she was lying.

Maybe it was just that she wanted this to be a success, whatever it was that this was. Regulus trusted Lyra and her strange friends, and Adeline trusted Regulus, and that, in all, should be that.

They were deposited on the lowest level, where the brickwork gave way to stone walls and stone floors and giant arched doorways marking doors that would and could kill a wizard. Or a witch. Adeline shuddered. Maybe it was that the lower levels were cold, and the lowest the coldest of all. She drew her cloak around her. The baby twisted within her stomach, as if she could feel that this was something unusual. Adeline was certain that it was a girl.

"The Black vault," said the goblin, whose name Adeline had not bothered to learn. With a sweep of its finger on the door, the Black vault opened and Lyra stepped confidently inside. "I will wait here," the goblin said, and Adeline followed Lyra inside.

"We got down here safely, and that's a start," said Lyra, who was fiddling in her bag as soon as the door had shut behind them. "As far as the goblin's concerned, nothing unusual is going on. We'll stay in here a reasonable amount of time, maybe collect something for an alibi, is there anything you want? Then we'll go outside, Imperius the goblin, open the Lestrange vault, take the thing, and once we're safely back we'll Obliviate him. He'll think all was normal and we'll be able to get out without utilising a bloody dragon this time."

"Dragon?" Adeline was not sure why it was she'd chosen that to take from Lyra's speech, but it somehow seemed like an important part. Even if the rest of what Lyra proposed was illegal.

"Trust me," said Lyra. "Sirius used to tell me to trust him. Back when I first met him here. And he was right, I think. I want to think he was right. Do you always trust Regulus?"

"Not at the beginning," said Adeline, beginning to wander around the vault. The chests near the doorway were coins, flanking the entrance on either side. She stood by the jewellery, her hand running along the carefully displayed necklaces. Each of them was a priceless heirloom, brought out by Walburga for occasions or bestowed on members of the family. She herself owned two, officially, and Lyra owned one, too. Perhaps they should be collecting one of those. "At the beginning I did not trust him at all. I knew that he was one of the Dark Lord's own, and I didn't know how far those views extended. I liked to think that he was his own man."

"He is now," Lyra said. She had taken down a bracelet from a hook, twisting it around in her hands. "I had no idea how much was in here."

"Do not go to the back," Adeline advised. "There are items that kill. Regulus' father boasts of one that kills a Muggleborn if they come too close."

"The magic on that sounds rather implausible," said Lyra, but Adeline thought that she saw her step away from the back of the vault, into the better-lit front area.

"It might be time to go," said Adeline, instead of voicing any thoughts about the implausibility of any story. For one thing, it would be a rather stupid, and very much a Gryffindor, thing to do to raise suspicions about somebody in a vault on a lesser-visited floor of Gringotts at a quiet time of day. And Adeline was neither of those things. "I think you should cast the Imperius. I have no experience of the spell."

"I don't have much," she said, "and I wish I had none."

Adeline said nothing at all. Instead, she opened the door, and, careful to make it seem natural, ensured that the goblin saw her push the necklace into her bag. They had visited the vault for entirely legitimate reasons. Lyra gave her the slightest of nods, and, a fraction of a second later, the goblin was crossing the floor towards the Lestrange vault.

"Come on," said Lyra, striding after it. Adeline followed, wondering if this should perhaps be a part of the security charms. It would be sensible to be able to detect the use of the Unforgivables within a bank, certainly.

The Lestrange vault opened, and Lyra hurried the three of them in. It was only slightly less grand of a vault than that of the Blacks, and more haphazard, without the arrangements of shelves and hanging spaces and chests that kept the Black vault under control.

"It's alright, I'll Obliviate him," said Lyra, pointing her wand at the goblin as he wandered into a corner without much idea what he was doing. "I hate this. They're just as entitled to their rights as the rest of us, but I don't think there's any other way. And I don't want to get caught. So it isn't ethical, and I'll admit that, but maybe I can justify it if it'll bring him down? Oh, there it is! Could you levitate me towards that thing with the badger on up there, please, Adeline?"

"Certainly." Entirely sure why this was happening she was not, but Adeline did as requested.

"They've added Gemino and Flagrate," Lyra explained, answering a question Adeline hadn't asked, as she rose through the air. "So we can't touch anything else. I don't know how the items would know if it was a Lestrange, maybe there's some kind of blood charm? But anyway, we can't touch things."

"I'll try not to."

"Got it!" The cup in Lyra's hand burst into a ten or twelve more copies, one of them hitting her sleeve and burning a hole into the robes, causing Lyra to wince. It was lucky that they were not a favourite set of Adeline's robes. "Bring me down!" she shouted.

Adeline lowered Lyra to the floor, and Lyra twisted her arm around to inspect the damage.

"It doesn't look that bad," she said. "Sirius would ignore it."

"I do not think Sirius always has quite the right ideas about things."

Lyra wrinkled her nose. "He's got a lot of incredibly stupid ideas, as you've obviously noticed. His heart's in the right place. He's got a lot more positive qualities than his family would ever have you know, but, yes, he does sometimes have terrible ideas." She wrinkled her nose again, and pointed her wand at her arm. The skin healed at least in part, and the robes repaired themselves around the burn. "Last thing we want is too look like we've been stealing," she said. "Now let's go out of here. The longer we're in here, the more chance there is something's going to go wrong."

That, in Adeline's opinion, was stating the obvious.

"When is it you'll explain to me what that is?" she asked, indicting the cup that Lyra was stuffing into a bag. "I feel I deserve to know."

"Yeah," said Lyra, flicking her wand at the bag as it sealed itself, having taken the cup without a visible bulge like Adeline would have expected from a bag of that size. "You do. But not here. We're going to destroy it, and then you know what we're going to have to do after that. I'll tell you if I can, but we've got to prioritise not dying. He knows what we're up to, we think."

And Adeline did not have to ask who he was in this context.

"Come along, then," she said. With a small twirl of Lyra's wand, the goblin opened the door, and the strange three of them made their way back to outside of the Black vault.

" _Obliviate,_ " Lyra muttered, and the goblin seemed to shake it head as if confused as to what had happened, but then decided that nothing in particular had. It motioned to them to rejoin it in the cart, and they rode back making inconsequential small-talk about Narcissa Malfoy and Georgina Macmillan and Hetty Nott and all of the other people in their social circle as if they had done nothing at all rebellious or important.

As they arrived back, a small stone cairn on the top of the hill was on fire, Remus Lupin waving his wand in the air rhythmically as Sirius waved his slightly more frantically.

"They're on fire!" shouted Sirius happily as Lyra and Adeline arrived, landing with as much grace as they could muster. "We're controlling it, don't worry!"

"Concentrate, Sirius! We won't be if you don't concentrate!"

Lyra pulled the cup with the crest of Hufflepuff from her bag and threw it into the fire in one swift movement. It was priceless, if it was what Adaline thought it was, a likely genuine relic of Helga Hufflepuff herself. It seemed to scream as it hit the flames, or perhaps it was something else, but something certainly made the noise.

"What was that?" Adeline asked, as Lyra pulled out her wand and joined the two men in battling the flames.

"A piece of his soul," Remus Lupin answered. "You-Know-Who's. We've got to destroy them before we can kill him."

"I see," said Adeline, despite the fact that she did not, not entirely. It was not supposed to be possible to split one's soul, except in the darkest of ways. But then that was what she had known, that he was more dangerous than anyone else, and she hadn't wanted Regulus to be mixed up in this, and she hadn't wanted to stand against him herself. She'd never have acted, without all of this, and now, somehow, she found herself helping to kill him. "And the fire?"

"Fiendfyre." It was Sirius who answered this time, his feet inexplicably without shoes, she noticed. "Only thing we have at our disposal that can destroy them."

"Very well." Adeline had promised to do what she could to help. She drew her wand. "If you tell me the incantation, I can help you contain it."

It was some time after that, when the fire had burnt down and all that was left was a pile of charred artefacts that seemed to leak tar down their sides, that somebody spoke.

"What next?" Adeline asked, as Lyra swept the remains into a small black bag that, once again, should not have so easily held what was inside.

"Kill him," said Sirius. "And find the others, of course. Merlin knows what trouble they've got themselves into."


	64. Chapter 64: Duplicates

**Chapter Sixty-Four: Duplicates**

 _Peter_

 _November 1979, The Crossing_

Once again, somehow, they'd forgotten about Peter.

James was with Lily, obviously. Sirius was on a mission with Frank Longbottom and Moody. And Peter was supposed to be going to the Arrows verses Wasps match out in the Fens, but Remus, who he was supposed to be going with, was nowhere to be seen. He was probably off with Phil.

Peter wouldn't be annoyed, but this was happening more and more lately. James and Lily, Remus and Phil, Sirius and the Order of the Phoenix. They'd all paired off, and Peter was on his own. Marlene had died, been murdered, and Peter was on his own.

"We're going to miss the start," he grumbled, to nobody, because nobody was here.

It wasn't just that they'd left him. Peter didn't like being on his own. He'd never liked being on his own, in fact. His mother had told him that when he was a baby, he'd cried every time she'd left the room, and he'd continued that dislike of being alone to the present day. Not that he still cried for his mother, of course. He was just happier in company.

It didn't help that these days, they told you not to be alone if you could help it. And Peter couldn't help but feel that sort of advice was even more pertinent if you were a member of the Order of the Phoenix, admittedly not a high-ranking one, and, therefore, more of a target for the Death Eaters than an ordinary member of the wizarding population. He wasn't any more important than any of them, but he was more of a target.

Peter went to find something useful to do.

It was an hour after the start time of the Quidditch that Peter decided that Remus probably wasn't coming back, and five minutes of disgruntled huffing later that he realised that this might not be Remus' fault. They were in a war. Something could have happened to Remus.

Peter's first instinct was to call James, or Sirius. But Sirius was out of contact, and although there wasn't any reason he shouldn't call James, Peter decided against it. He didn't need to lean on his friends for this. Everyone kept telling him he was capable. He could find out where Remus was by himself.

And if Remus hadn't shown up because he was shagging, well, Peter would Vanish one of each of his pairs of socks. See how he liked that.

He decided to start by fire-calling Phil's office. No answer. That in itself wasn't abnormal. Remus hadn't said that's exactly where he was going to be. She had a house away from Hogwarts somewhere, they were probably there. Not that he knew where that was. Or out on a mission for the Order. Except if it was that, why hadn't he also been contacted?

He decided to call James.

But James hadn't seen Remus either, and before long the three of them stood in the living room at the house - James, stoically calm, Lily, looking nervous, and Peter, pacing.

"He said he was with Philomena," James said. "He's probably shagging."

"It isn't like Remus, though," Lily said. "He's always been reliable."

"Relationships change people," said James, sagely. "He'll be back soon, looking shamefaced, probably, if I know Remus."

But he wasn't back soon, and after an hour had passed even James looked worried. Peter hadn't managed to do anything useful, this time. He'd mostly used the time to think up horrific scenarios of what could have happened to Remus, which wasn't helpful, but he couldn't stop himself from doing so no matter how many times Lily pointed out that it wasn't helpful.

"He could be on an Order mission," said James. "I don't know about any emergency ones though, do you?"

"Dorcas is in charge today," Lily said. "We'll talk to her. It might be that something came up and she only contacted a few people, rather than everyone."

Peter made a cup of tea for everyone while Lily called Dorcas, but that didn't take his mind off anything, either. They'd all thought Marlene would turn up, and she hadn't. The Death Eaters had murdered Marlene. They'd do the same to Remus, if they could.

Peter checked his pockets for his wand. If it came to it, he'd go out there and kill someone if he had to. He wasn't scared of them any more. The worst thing they could do was keep taking his friends, and he wasn't going to let that happen.

Dorcas was in the living room when Peter came back, levitating cups of tea ahead of him. Signs weren't good, Peter realised before anyone even said anything, as she was twisting a slip of parchment around in her hands. Dorcas didn't panic.

"Alright, Peter?" she asked. Peter shrugged. It wasn't as if she didn't already know the answer.

"Nobody's seen Remus," said James.

"I've fire-called Albus," Dorcas said, taking a seat, and Peter, who'd been standing for an hour, took one too. James and Lily followed suit, sharing significant looks. "He says he hasn't seen either of them, and he's sent a house-elf down to Philomena's rooms. He's going to let us know if they're there. Should be any minute, house-elves are quick enough."

"What then?" James asked. "If they aren't."

"Albus is looking up Philomena's home address. There's ways of finding it out, even if she's never properly told any of us. If they're not at Hogwarts, we'll go there. Alice, Sturgis and Emmeline were at Headquarters when I got your call, so I've sent them round all the haunts - Three Broomsticks, the Leaky, Hog's Head, even - to see if they've just gone out. I've sent a Patronus up to Hagrid, who's checking the Hogwarts grounds. Caradoc's doing the rounds of their families, not that there's much there to check for these two."

"The Missing Person Protocol," said Lily.

"Glad to see someone reads the damn procedures. Merlin knows Moody never does." Dorcas sighed. "Not that this is the occasion for celebrating that. We're going to find Remus."

Peter, still holding his wand, hoped that Dorcas was right about that.

 _Luna 1_

 _November 1979, Riddle House_

"I do hope that you have a plan," said Regulus, again, as he accompanies the pair of them down to the cellar. "I do not think you can hold him off with smoke and lies."

"I have enough of one," Ginny repeated. "Just let me try."

"It is all of our lives at stake, and Remus, and Adeline, and Hermione and Sirius," Regulus warned.

Luna ignored them. Instead, she focused on placing one foot in front of another on the flagstone steps down to the cellar itself. Not all of the wooziness in front of Voldemort was faked, unfortunately. She'd taken a curse in the fight at the house, and it had seemed like a reason nobody would pay much attention to her. They would have been unlikely to have taken her seriously or seen her as a threat anyway, but this ensured they paid even less attention.

Ginny and Regulus continued to bicker, and Luna thought that perhaps, had they not both fallen for other people entirely, they might have made a nice pair. But then she had once thought that about herself and Ginny, and, that would not have worked, she didn't think. Wishful thinking, it might have, but it didn't. Instead she thought about her own plan, which she liked to think was superior to Ginny's, but one could never make assumptions, could they?

"I am to leave you here," Regulus says, jabbing Ginny in the back with his wand as they reached the front of a crude cell. It was held together more by magic than any feats of engineering, Luna thought, but that didn't mean it wouldn't successfully keep them in.

"You're not really going to lock us in, are you?"

"I want to survive," Regulus replied, pointing his wand into the cell with an expectant look. "I want you to survive. I am very much certain that allowing you to escape at this stage would be detrimental to all of our future lives."

"Lack of," Luna added, trying to be helpful. Ginny raised an eyebrow.

"Sounds bollocks," she said. "What if this is when you turn tail on us? You've switched sides once already." Her voice carried, and Luna and Regulus shushed her in unison.

"You will have to trust me," Regulus said. "Hermione does."

"Hermione makes as many errors in fucking judgement as the rest of us. What do you think, Luna?"

Luna's plan isn't particularly at odds with this, and so she shrugged. "I trust Regulus," she said. "At least I trust this iteration of him."

Ginny clearly thought of several different things she could say at that point, but ultimately didn't seem to decide that any of them were worth it.

"Fine," she said, after a long pause, and wandered into the cell. "But if this is you turning traitor, I'll find you and I'll end you, Regulus Black."

"Noted," said Regulus, as Luna trailed in behind, still swaying slightly as she walked, and the door was locked behind them. "I am going to ask somebody else to come down here, to verify that I have, indeed, done as the Dark Lord asked. It will ensure that all of us are above suspicion, I think. I will then alert our friends." He checked over his shoulder, quickly, in true conspirator fashion, Luna thought. "And we had best hope your plan works."

Luna reached for the little black box she kept in her pocket. She didn't yet know if it was going to work. Many of Ginny's plans didn't, this was true enough, but she didn't want to assume. That would be unfair. And she was sure that it could be manipulated slightly.

Regulus left, after Ginny had sworn at him a few more times. Luna had never found swearing to be particularly effective at anything, least of all persuading somebody to do something that you wanted to do in good humour, but there you were. She wasn't Ginny. And this wasn't the time for meanderings on effective manipulation of friends and enemies.

Ginny flopped down onto one of the beds in the room, which, judging by her face as she did so, was harder than she had expected. Luna sat rather more carefully on the other one, then lowered herself backwards into a lying down position. The ceiling had mould on it.

"Do you reckon he'll do the right thing?" Ginny mused.

"Most likely, I think. I haven't worked out the probabilities. But he seems like a good man."

Ginny snorted.

"What is your plan?" Luna asked. She did rather need to know.

"Lure him to the others, hope to Merlin they've burnt the things to a crisp, fight him, kill him. Simple. Make him think we're taking him so he can trap them."

And rather likely to go wrong, Luna thought, but there you were. Plans were often imperfect. Hermione, somehow, hadn't thought of this eventuality.

Luna reflected on that. It was perhaps their collective fault, more than just Hermione's. But either way, the net result was that they were left with Ginny's plan, and uncertainties, and a fair amount of balancing on legal technicalities and the spirit of various Ministry rules to save the entire situation.

Regulus was true to his word and sent down two arrogant pure-bloods in dark robes to point and laugh at their predicament. Neither of them did more than throw insults, even when Ginny retaliated in kind, and Luna supposed they'd probably been warned off it. Or perhaps they were just scared enough of Voldemort to leave his hostages alone. Either way, she found herself vaguely grateful.

Ginny sat on the floor this time when they'd gone.

"I bloody hope Regulus isn't lying to us," she said. "I'm going to kill him if he was."

Luna's instinct still was that he wasn't.

"Where are we going to lure him to? He's unlikely to let us come with him, after all."

"Nah, we convince him the only way to get the information is for him to take us. Use us as bait, basically. And then he does, and we're able to turn tail on him. And hope we're backed up, frankly."

"I suppose that could work." Luna saw several problems in the plan, but one stuck out more than others. "We don't have our wands."

"Balls." Ginny folded her arms and stared at the ceiling. "This is why I'm not a planner."

"It's only a small flaw," Luna said, even though it was really rather a big one.

The scream from upstairs suggested that something was going on up there, and that the plan would be needed sooner rather than later.

 _Hermione_

 _November 1979, Thetford Abbey_

"How do we find them, though?" Remus asked, as Hermione, with her wand, directed the last Horcrux into the bag. It'd be a safe place for them, for now. Not that she was sure what she'd do with them, but it didn't feel right to leave them lying around. "They're not responding to their coins. Sending a Patronus might be dangerous. We've checked all the safe places."

"There's an obvious place they could be," said Hermione, straightening up. She'd been thinking this since they'd first realised they were missing, and she thought that the others had, too, by the look on their faces as she said that. But she hadn't wanted to say it, and clearly nobody else had, either.

"He's got them," Sirius said, finishing it for her. "Or they're dead."

"I don't think they're dead," Hermione said. "He'd want information. He's arrogant. He'd want to know how they found it and why they'd gone looking there in the first place. That's what Dumbledore always said, and I think he's right."

"Regulus thought so too," said Adeline, as if that decided it. "He thought that the Dark Lord would want some glory from it."

"Why d'you call him the Dark Lord?" Sirius asked, taking a seat on a low wall and flicking away a bug. "It's what his followers call him."

"My husband was a follower. My brother remains a follower. My family, and the one I married into, and many of my friends, are or were sympathetic. I fall into the patterns of speech I am used to."

"Fine," said Sirius, as Hermione shot him a look. It wasn't the time for any of that.

"So if they're not dead," began Remus, pacing up and down, "that must mean they've been captured. What are we going to do?"

"Regulus is enacting Plan F," said Hermione, more confidently than she felt about all of this, "and so he'll come up with something, I'm sure. Adeline says he's there, so he should know about it, and he'll rescue them. I'm not sure what else we can do. We can't storm the Lestrange house, we don't know if they're even there. They could be at any of his followers' homes, or that graveyard, or a site, or anywhere. And there's not enough of us."

"I reckon I could take at least six of them," said Sirius, who was ignored.

"We need our own plan," Hermione continued. She hadn't been prepared enough, they hadn't planned for enough eventualities, and it was now coming back to firmly bite them on the arse. "We need a plan."

"Don't we always," said Remus, in Hermione's opinion, unhelpfully.

"Mostly," Sirius said. "We usually end up throwing them out of the metaphorical window at some point, but I suppose they're useful as a jumping off point."

"Windowsill," said Remus.

Hermione sighed.

It was at this point that Luna arrived.

"Evening," she said, and promptly sat down.

"Luna?"

"Who else would I be?"

Sirius was first up to her, with his wand drawn. "What was it you said when I told Ginny she'd never make it as a Keeper?"

"That Remus might disagree. And then we talked about butterflies."

Sirius lowered his wand and stalked off.

"Sorry, Luna," he said. "Can't be too careful."

"No, I agree. I'm sorry it took me a while to get here. What's going on?"

"We've burnt them," said Hermione, indicating the dark, burnt spot on the grass and assuming Luna would understand what she meant. "More importantly, where's Ginny?"

"Ginny?" asked Adeline. "I don't think I've heard of a Ginny."

"It's her nickname" Remus lied, quicker than Hermione could come up with a lie. "Apparently she used to go by it for a while, although she's never told me the full story of why. I think it's embarrassing somehow."

The lie reminded Hermione of Harry's bloody 'Roonil Wazlib' lie and that book and the spell checking quill, but she tried to get rid of that thought. It wasn't as if it would help, thinking of Harry and Ron. Neither of them were born yet.

"Where is she?" Hermione asked, trying to bring the conversation back to where it should be.

"Oh, she's coming up with a plan," said Luna. "She's preparing it, we've spoken to Regulus. All you need to do is be in the right place. Bodmin Moor."

"Really?" Sirius' hand went to his wand again. "It doesn't sound like much of a plan."

"It's what we have," said Luna, in true Luna vagueness, as she stood fiddling with something in her pocket. Hermione didn't think much of that. They were all going for their wands the instant a bird flew by or something. She did briefly wonder if she ought to make something of that, but that was about as far as she got. "Are you going to trust me and Ginny, or not."

"Philomena," Remus corrected. "You and Philomena."

"Bodmin Moor," said Sirius. "Where?"

Luna gave them precise map coordinates, which didn't seem very helpful without a map, and then more useful directions. Hermione had to admit that was skeptical. It was either that or storming a Voldemort stronghold, and they'd discussed the idea of luring Voldemort to them enough times previously that it wasn't an entirely new plan. J or K, Hermione thought, it was a significant part of one of those.

"Alright," said Remus. "We'd better go, then, hadn't we?"

"Oh, I'm not coming with you," said Luna. "I've got things I need to be doing."

"Really?"

"Yes. I'd better be going. I'll see you there, in about half an hour, I think."

She Disapparated with the smallest of pops, and immediately the four of them turned to one another. But it was a few seconds before anyone said anything, and, slightly to Hermione's surprise, it was Adeline who spoke first.

"I think we are all agreed that this is some sort of trap," she said.

Sirius nodded enthusiastically, even Remus looked convinced.

"It's Luna," said Hermione, because she wasn't sure Adeline was right. She couldn't be. "She proved to Sirius that she was Luna. We discussed the luring him in trick, or at least, most of us did. And why would it be a trap when it's her, and it's one of our plans? We've got to trust her. We've got to trust her and Ginny and Regulus."

"Hermione," said Sirius. "It smells like a trap. I understand your logic, but, sometimes logic isn't the right route."

"It's part of the plans."

Remus steps in. "I don't trust it, either," he said, slowly. "The question thing isn't infallible. June, '78, for example." Sirius nodded. "And somebody could have got a hair from her for Polyjuice, or some other way of impersonating her, and it isn't like she stuck around. I don't think we should go there, or, if we do, it shouldn't be all of us and we should expect the worst."

"I don't know enough of the situation to bring facts to the table," said Adeline, one hand resting on her belly, "but I agree with the other two. We don't trust this."

Hermione sat down. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. But they had convincing points, all of them, and Hermione wasn't about to risk everybody's lives by dragging them somewhere they didn't want to be. Whether they'd follow, or not.

"We had this all planned out," she said, defeated. "We had a plan."

"Plans go wrong," said Sirius, a grim look on his face. "We're winging it, now."

 _Luna 2_

 _November 1979, Department of Mysteries_

"You did it?"

"I don't know until it all loops around again, do I?"

"I suppose not."

"I'm going to be going to help them, you know. I can't sit around. No version of me can."

"You'll create a paradox."

"I do know what I'm doing."

"You just said you didn't."

Luna conjured an armchair and sat herself down. From the other side of her desk, Betty glared at her.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough."

"I've lived through three hours of my life twice. I barely made it back on time. I'm going to help them, because if I don't, and they die, and I'm here, how do you expect me to live with the consequences of my own actions?" Luna thought she sounded a little like Hermione, there, or perhaps Ginny. Less Ravenclaw, more Gryffindor. Luna was never sure the distinction mattered.

"Fine," said Betty. "Would you like me to come?"

Luna considered it.

"I cannot tell you what you should and shouldn't do," she settled on. "That is for your conscience to decide, just as mine ruled my decision."

"You're a remarkable witch," Betty said, for once coming out from the back of her desk and conjuring her own armchair, which fits across from Luna's. They looked at each other for a while, and Luna felt rather strange about it. She didn't believe Betty knew anything like Legilimency, and, she'd probably have noticed if it was that, but it felt like something not dissimilar. "I don't think I've ever met anyone quite like you."

Luna hadn't met anyone quite like Betty, either. She checked her watch. "I'm actually a little ahead of my schedule," she said, conversationally. "Perhaps I didn't need to rush back so quickly, after all."

"Maybe not. Do you think they believed you."

"I don't know," mused Luna. She hadn't quite come to a conclusion either way, not yet. "Time will tell, I suppose."

"Time is something we have just about enough of," said Betty. "Do you have it, still?"

"Of course. I'm not going to lose something this dangerous."

"Best not to. You'll need it again, after tonight."

"No. I'm done with time travel, after tonight."

"Paradoxes," Betty said, and whatever Luna said after that, she refused to be drawn into an answer.

Eventually, Luna stood up and Vanished the armchair she'd been sitting on.

"Coming?" she asked. "Your decision. It's unethical to make somebody else's decisions, I find."

In answer, Betty stood up and Vanished her own armchair.

"I hope your plan works."

"Let's find out."


	65. Chapter 65: Traps and Plans

**Chapter Sixty-Five: Traps and Plans**

 _Regulus_

 _November 1979, Riddle House_

There may well have been a plan. There may well have been a thousand plans, but Regulus knew nothing of any of the current ones. And if he died because of that, he thought perhaps that he would haunt whoever it was that was responsible. It seemed like fitting retribution. Perhaps revenge.

Not that he was permitted much time to dwell on this. No, Regulus, for the one who definitely did not know the plan, was the person who stood in front of the Dark Lord once more.

"Regulus," said Voldemort, sitting in a chair turning a piece of metal that Regulus could not identify over in his hand. "I can trust you, can I not?"

"I am yours," said Regulus, not willing to dare an outright lie. "I am yours, and I am loyal to you until the end of my days."

The end of his days may be rather close, he thought, but he could not dwell on that, either. He would have liked another Death Eater present, even. Someone to notice if he was murdered. He watched the progress of the piece of metal. It was sharp and contoured, a glint of red to it. Small enough to be jewellery of some kind, perhaps.

"You are aware of what I created, yes?"

"I am, my Lord. But I am at your service. I will swear an Oath that I will not pass any information pertaining them to any who do not know, if you wish for it."

"That will not be necessary. Without them, I am at risk. I plan to fight my enemies soon, Regulus, if not tonight, then tomorrow or the day after that. And I cannot, I will not, do that if I am at risk. I must have another."

Regulus, to his credit, did not flinch. If this was to be his end then it may well be quick.

"No," said the Dark Lord, and Regulus strengthened his Occlumency. "I shall not kill you, Regulus Black. I often wonder if I can know, truly, who it is that is loyal to me, and I am certain of you. I will not kill the ones I know to be loyal. We will find ourselves a traitor, and I believe that we have two of them downstairs."

"We do."

Regulus wondered if it was selfish to feel relief that his own life would continue, at least until the end of this piece of usefulness. It was. Because he did not see how he could prevent the death of at least one of his brother's friends that were caught in the Dark Lord's custody downstairs. He did not know the plan. He did not have one of his own.

"You will fetch one." Voldemort did not present it as a question.

"Are you certain that this is the right course of action?" Regulus almost took a step backwards as he asked the question, because one did not ask questions of their Lord. But he stayed where he was, in place, trying to adopt a pose of humility over defiance.

"I can see that you have read the literature," said Voldemort, standing up from his chair. "Some say that to break the soul multiple times risks destabilising it. That, Regulus, is merely scaremongering. Because of course the Ministry and Dumbledore do not want a wizard as powerful as I am, and this is only a small amount of the power I could attain. They know nothing. None have pushed the boundaries of this magic as far as I, and I know that this will work. Seven is the most powerful magical number, is it not, Regulus?"

"It is."

"As well as your loyalty, you must offer me your trust. Bring me a prisoner."

"You said that you desired to keep them both alive. I called a Healer for the one that had suffered curse damage, my Lord. You said that you needed the information."

"One can talk as well as two. Sometimes, Regulus, it benefits a wizard to keep their enemies in the dark as to what their true plan may be. To lull them into a false sense of security. If I allow them both to believe that they will survive, then they are far more likely to cooperate. Fetch one. Tell them that they are being brought upstairs for a conversation, or that the damaged one is to receive treatment, or whatever lie it is that you wish to concoct. I expect that you can manage it."

"Which one?"

"Whichever you choose. Go."

Regulus strode from the room; he would not show any of what he felt. He did not know which one to choose. He did not think he could ask either of them to choose which one of them should be taken to Voldemort. It was a death sentence, whatever way it was looked at. It was an impossible choice.

Whatever plan this was, it had best activate within this next five minutes. Because he was in the dark, it seemed that everyone wished to keep Regulus at least somewhat in the dark. He did not like it.

"You're back," said Ginny, flatly, when he arrived in the cellar, still unclear on what his next actions were to be. She stood at the front of the cell, glaring at him, as if she was a Basilisk. Luna sat at the back, scrunched up and with Ginny's hooded jacket on over her own clothes. "What do you want?"

"I have been instructed to take one of you up to Voldemort," said Regulus, pulling a wand from his robes in preparation of unlocking the cage. MacNair's wand, that he had liberated from the floor of the hall upstairs. "Who shall it be? Perhaps I should allow you to pick your own fate."

Ginny looked down at the wand and, almost imperceptibly, raised an eyebrow. "That would be me," she said. "I think."

"Are you not the one with the information?" Regulus asked.

"Not really," she said. "Shitting bollocks."

"Language."

"It's not really the bloody time for policing my fucking language, is it, Regulus?"

"Too familiar," said Regulus, cautiously, with a look over his shoulder. "The Dark Lord knows that I am loyal."

"You've got to decide who you're going to kill," said Ginny. "I don't think anyone's listening. Nobody's been down here since you."

"It does not do to be incautious."

"No. I suppose. Bollocks."

"You are my brother's friends. I do not wish for any of you to die."

"Sirius' friends? We're your friends. Well, I mean, you're about to walk one of us upstairs to be murdered by Lord Voldemort, but what's that between friends?"

"Something significant."

"Yeah, probably. No offence, but I don't think you'll be my favourite person when I'm being murdered."

"None taken." Regulus regretted every single path that had brought him to this point. "Perhaps you will tell me, now, what the plan is?"

"Still got my coin," said Ginny, delving into her pocket and pulling out the charmed coin Hermione had made them. Regulus', of course, was with Adeline. "Only problem is, they don't seem to be looking at them."

"I see."

He could not think of Adeline now.

"Plan was," said Ginny, leaning up against the bars of her cell and talking to Regulus over her shoulder, "to tell them where we are and get them to come and rescue us. Obviously this place will have an anti-Disapparition jinx, but, I watched you lock this. There aren't any keys, just spells. And I heard you cast them. So we just need one wand, and we can escape."

"The whole manor is covered by the Jinx," said Regulus, leaning onto the bars a little, himself. "You need to go quite some way onto the grounds before that cuts out. So I think you may fine escape harder than you wish."

"I'm confident," said Ginny, turning around and grinning at him.

Regulus' eyes met Ginny's, and he remembered that he still had something to do.

"I still have to bring someone upstairs."

"Come on, then," said Ginny, holding her arms out wide. "I'm as ready as I'll be."

"I think this is a job for me," said Luna, speaking for the first time as she rose from her corner. "I don't think it belongs to anyone else, at any rate. And so by a process of elimination, it is me."

"Luna," said Ginny. "Luna, don't."

"Come along, Regulus," she said. "All you have to do is trust me. This is the right thing to do."

Regulus pulled his wand from his robes and unlocked the cell, checking that Ginny had heard the incantation correctly. None of this seemed like it was a good idea, but it was all that they had. And he was much more likely to offer his trust to her, instead of to the Dark Lord. He had tried that before, after all.

"I will take Luna," he said. "Come along.

"Regulus," protested Ginny, trying to force her way from the cell when the door swung open. He flicked his wand at her, pushing her back with as little force as he could. "No, Regulus!"

"I think that somebody will be down shortly to check that you are behaving yourself. But then it is your decision what you choose to do next, Miss Prewett." He was walking towards the doorway now, careful to ensure that he was not heard talking in a familiar tone towards her, even, let alone being seen to help her out. "And you had best come along," he said, to Luna, even as he felt that this was all a terrible idea and that he should run.

He would be caught if he ran. He would be caught and he would die, and this would all be for nothing. Was that cowardly? He had never been certain if what he had planned to do for the Horcrux was cowardly or brave, and now, the issue had come back once more.

"You can trust me that this is the right thing to do," said Luna, almost inaudibly, as calm as could possibly be. "I know that you don't want to do this. I don't think we could escape if we tried, so I think I have a plan that'll get us all out of this, in some way or another."

Death is a way out of this in one way or another, Regulus thought, but he did not wish to say that.

"I am somewhat frustrated with plans," was all that he said, in his own quietest voice, as he decided that trusting in Luna was the most feasible option he had left.

 _Sirius_

 _November 1979, Bodmin Moor_

"This is a trap," he said, pacing up and down and up and down, driving everyone mad, probably, because he was driving himself up the metaphorical wall with it, but, fucking hell, he couldn't stop. "So how do we get out of it? But if this isn't a trap, and we get out of it, we walk back into a trap."

"Or we're somewhere entirely useless," said Remus, "which is infinitely worse."

Sirius was forced to agree with that.

He took to pacing the perimeter instead of back and forth, which seemed to increase the twisting in his gut. Round and round and round, marking a series of ever increasing circles with his feet. Spirals. Maybe they were spirals.

His feet squelched into the damp grass, getting mud on his bare toes, standing on the odd stone. The darkness drew in around them. That and the wind and the damp sent a soft mist into the air in the distance. It was colder and darker and altogether more wet, almost prophetic for how the night was going.

He kept his wand drawn.

"You're going to wear yourself out," said Hermione, falling into step beside him. Remus and Adeline occupied the centre of the circle, Adeline on a conjured stool, Remus standing awkwardly next to her fiddling with the sleeves of his coat. They were talking. Sirius had no idea what they were talking about. He didn't think they had anything in common, probably.

"Can't stand still," he replied. "How can I stand still? How can you wait?"

"I never said it was easy to wait," she said. He slowed so she could keep pace. "Or that I wanted to, actually. I don't know, it just feels like we should conserve energy."

"What would Mad-Eye say? Constant vigilance. We should be prepared for anything."

"Including death," said Hermione, grimly, and Sirius stopped in his tracks.

"Nobody's going to die."

"We don't know that. We've never known that."

"We're here to save everyone. To make it so that we all live long and happy lives without fucking Vol - without fucking _him_ hanging like an unwanted sodding Halloween decoration over us. Nobody's going to die. We're going to save them, me and you, Ginny and Remus, Regulus and Adeline, bloody hell, I don't even know my brother's wife and I've got to save her, Luna, where the fuck is Luna? And James and Lily, obviously, and Peter's not a Death Eater, so I suppose him too, and what about Dorcas? Caradoc Dearborn? Frank and Alice? All these people, they could all die, so we can't die, Hermione, because if we die it's all fucked. The world. Like that." He mimed an explosion with his hands. "Whoof."

"Sirius," she said, grabbing his hand, because he'd started off pacing again and he couldn't quite remember when he'd started it. "Stop."

"But you said you didn't know if we'd die. And we can't. I stopped Regulus from dying. And I have to do it again."

"You do realise it isn't your job, don't you? That you're not actually personally responsible for saving the entire wizarding world?"

"No, I know that."

"Do you?"

Sirius kicked a rock. Which hurt. He hadn't put his shoes on and everyone might fucking die, and his toe hurt.

"Exactly."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferable?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, never. Nobody has ever said that before in my life. Other phrases that have never been used to describe me include bossy, opinionated, a know-it-all, unreasonably obsessed with knitting for house-elves, in love with Sirius Black no matter how insufferable he, too, is."

"Fuck off," he muttered. "I love you too."

He wanted to tell her that, even if he died tonight, he'd always love her, or that she was the best thing that'd ever happened to him, or that, despite all of the things that were going on, these were some of the best times he'd ever had. He wanted to say a lot of things, but all of them sounded cheesy and out of place.

"I just don't know what I'd do without you anymore."

It seemed to cover some of it. Maybe she understood what it was that he was trying to say, as she wrapped her arms around him and snuggled into his chest, her smaller body fitting perfectly within his own. He closed his arms around her too, resting his head on the top of hers, trying to remember exactly how this felt. It felt like just the two of them in the middle of whatever this was, a normal husband and wife, just how they should be. No war. No Voldemort. Just them.

If he ever managed the Patronus, maybe this would be the memory. Not something flashy, showy perfect, just this. Just them.

"When this is over," he said, slightly muffled into her hair, "we should do something. Something for us, you know? I don't know what. I'm not sure I know who I am without a war to define me."

"It sort of becomes everything, doesn't it? I felt like that, before. But I made a life, sort of, so we can do it again."

"Your old life?" He hadn't ever wanted to ask if she'd go back to that. Back when they'd first been here in his past, she'd talked about going back. She'd been trying to fix the time-turner in the little black box, researching time travel, sitting cloistered with Ginny talking about Harry and Ron and what they'd do when they were back. All of that had stopped. She'd married him, for what that was worth. But he'd never asked if she still wanted to go back.

"My old life? I don't think I can do that. I tried to get us back, remember? I don't think it's possible. I was looking at the Time-Turner the other day; it seems even more broken than I remember it. Not that I've had time to think about it." She slipped out from him, resuming position at his side with her wand ready. "But then, I don't know how it works here. I'm not sure I can live as Lyra Black forever. And there's two of you. You're not even officially a person, because there's already a Sirius Black."

He didn't know if she wanted to stay or not. Or if she was going to stay, but just because she didn't have any other choice.

"We should be alert," he said. He wasn't going to let himself dwell on any of this, not now. She loved him, she said she did. He had to trust that.

"I'm not ready for this to be it," she admitted. "For this to be some sort of final battle. There's only four of us."

"Luna will be here soon," he said, beginning to walk again for the distraction. "We trusted her. We trusted that this was the right place to come."

"I hope we made the right choice," said Hermione, grimly. "It isn't that I don't trust Luna. But either way, it's high risk, isn't it? I don't know if I like that."

"Any choice we made would have been high risk," said Sirius, and Hermione nodded. He shrugged. "Not that it makes this one any less risky." He didn't feel entirely confident about it, either. The knot in his stomach hadn't gone entirely, but it had definitely lessened while they'd been talking, and now, it was back with a vengeance.

"Well," she said, looking at him with a glint in her eye, "what's life without a bit of risk?"

He laughed. "Safe," he said. "Warmer than this. Less risk of instant death, or, worse, a long, painful one. Maybe another pet Hippogriff."

"Buckbeak went back to Hagrid's. He's happy. Was happy, when I left."

"Good. Liked that beast."

"If we all survive this, we can get a Hippogriff. Can you even buy Hippogriffs on the open market?"

"Stole mine, didn't I? I don't know."

"It's probably not important," said Hermione, shaking her head.

Sirius didn't know about that. Though, it was probably what Luna would have called demand avoidance.

"Let's go back to the others," Hermione said, nodding at Remus and Adeline. She looked serene enough, but Remus seemed to be pulling the buttons off his coat with his nervous energy.

"Just one more minute," said Sirius. Their hands were still joined, so he used that to pull her in again, their lips meeting. Just the two of them, he thought, he could pretend once more that it was just the two of them. "Can't we have a bit longer?"

"You-Know-Who isn't going to wait for us."

"Yeah. You're right."

So they wandered back over, and metaphorically went round in circles for a while, and briefly discussed baby names, of all things. Sirius kept to the outside of the group, trying to prevent himself from wandering off again. Hermione was probably right about conserving his energies. That didn't make it any easier.

Until he heard the sounds of people approaching.

" _Stupefy!"_ he shouted, pointing his wand in the direction of the people. They were too far away and the light was too dim for him to be able to identify them, but they wore cloaks and there were four, maybe five of them. Could be enemies. " _Stupefy!_ "

"Sirius, no! It might be Luna or Ginny or Regulus!" Hermione grabbed at his arm, but Sirius pulled himself free.

"If it is, they'll understand why I've stunned them. If it isn't, we're safer."

Next to him, Remus nodded, casting a Stunning Spell of his own. "Sirius has a point."

But it wasn't any of them, and nor was it enemies. Much to Sirius' surprise, Lily Potter, of all people, strode forwards, her face clearly identifiable now she was closer to him.

"Remus!" she shouted "Remus! Are you alright? Why did you Stun James?"

"Sorry, I didn't know it was James. Lily, is everything alright?"

"Fine, fine, I mean, the others are all Stunned, but we can sort that out." She strode back across to where three others lay on the floor, and with three jabs of her wand brought each of them back to consciousness. "Come on," she said to them. "Should have expected that. He's here, we've found him, but I'm certain the people he's with are allied with Death Eaters, at least."

"What?" asked Hermione. "We're not Death Eaters. Look." She pulled her sleeve up as if to demonstrate that, as Lily, James, Peter and Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius recognised, came up to them.

"Why are you here?" Remus asked. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"We're here to rescue you," said Lily, her wand pointed firmly at Hermione, possibly identifying her as the biggest threat. Sirius thought that was about right.

"I don't need rescuing," said Remus, shaking his head. "They're on our side. I'm here out of my own free will."

" _Finite Incantatum,"_ said Peter, prodding his wand rather aggressively at Remus. Nothing happened.

"That doesn't work if it's an Imperius," said James, "not that it would be particularly effective on Remus. And we can rule out Polyjuice."

"He might be telling the truth," said Dorcas.

"Not least because you've wasted so much time talking that they could have set up Anti-Disapparition Jinxes and started fighting by now, if they'd wanted to," pointed out Remus. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't say anything before. This, well, it's had to be secretive for a lot of reasons, but it isn't because I didn't want to tell you."

"Alright." Lily lowered her wand first. James followed her, and Dorcas after him. Peter kept his raised. "I'm going to demand that you tell us everything at the first convenient opportunity. But, for now, we trust you. Tell us what you need us to do."

"I don't," said Peter. "I don't trust any of this."

"Peter," warned James.

"No," said Peter. "I don't understand. Remus has been keeping secrets from all of us, and the rest of them haven't denied their links to Death Eaters, which suggests they have them, and Sirius would agree with me. So would Moody."

"Moody is paranoid," said Dorcas, flatly, "and, frankly, Sirius is heading that way sometimes. We trust them, Pete. That's the end of it."

"No it isn't!" Peter stomped forwards five or six steps, his wand inches from Sirius' chest. Sirius took a step backwards. "I know I'm always the one who's worried if something's dangerous, or a bad idea, the one that's scared to take a risk in case I die, but this isn't about that! This is me saying that this doesn't add up! You know who verified Philomena's identity, right? Pandora Lovegood. The girl who showed up to tell us to come here, saying she was a friend of Phil's. We've got no other proof. And Lyra Black could be anyone, you know, because nobody had heard of her before February. Which, coincidentally, isn't too far off when Philomena arrived, is it? I trust Remus, right, as much as the rest of you do. I think he's been fooled. So that's two possible fake identities, she's the wife of a Death Eater, and Merlin knows who he is."

"Sirius Black," said Sirius.

"See!"

"He's joking," said Lily, raising an eyebrow. "He's clearly joking."

"I'm not," said Sirius, as Hermione elbowed him. "I'm entirely serious."

"Exactly," said Lily. "Now, come on. If we're going to fight You-Know-Who we're going to need a plan. What's the significance of here, anyway?"

"No idea." The words were out of his mouth at about the same speed as Sirius registered that they were unhelpful. "We were sent here by the same person as you."

"Well," said Peter, glaring, "there's always the chance that this is a trap."

"Been through that. Several times."

"We have to work together," said Hermione. "Pandora has a plan, and we're not privy to all of it, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to work. She's working with Regulus Black, Sirius' brother, so she's got inside information with You-Know-Who."

"So we're expected to believe that a witch who works part-time in the Records Department of the Ministry is masterminding this entire plot to end the war, a feat Albus Dumbledore has not yet managed?" Dorcas, for the first time, looked less than convinced.

"Nothing wrong with working part-time in the Records Department," grumbled Remus, and was ignored.

"Besides," said Sirius, unsure of how much of this he was supposed to reveal, "she's not there anymore. Probably never properly was. She works for an entirely different part of the Ministry, now. A secretive one."

"So this is a Ministry plot?" Lily asked. "Is that why Peter doesn't think you're who you say you are?"

"Maybe."

"None of this is the point," said Hermione. "The point is, something could happen at any minute, and we're not at all ready. I think we should cast some basic Shield Charms into our clothing, just a refresher if you do them routinely already. I did yours and mine last night, Sirius, so we can help anyone who doesn't know how. And then we could run through some defensive formations, to make sure we're all on the same page, and, I don't know, perhaps prioritise one or two people to attack You-Know-Who specifically, so we don't all rush for him, and…"

"And snacks," said James. "We should go into battle fed." Sirius could agree with that.

"Personally, I recommend calling for back-up," said Dorcas. "Caradoc, Alice, Sturgis and Emmeline are available tonight, and if this is where the action will be, I'll call back Sirius, Alastor and Frank. There's limited benefit to their recon. And Albus, obviously. We're going to need all the wands we can get."

"And more," said James. "And the food." He began to pull things from the pockets of his cloak, handing around wrapped chocolate bars and packets of crisps. Sirius declined.

"You plan against me."

Sirius whipped round at the words, because it was obvious who it was going to be. The protective enchantments let off a wailing sound to alert him to the intruder; rather too fucking late. The sounds of Apparitions filled the air. One by one, Death Eaters appeared at Voldemort's side, each with a wand raised against them. Each of them black robed and silver masked, each of them ready to kill. One of them was Regulus.

Fuck, one of them was Regulus. This could go wrong a thousand ways.

Only Voldemort wasn't masked, Voldemort and, next to him, Ginny. Her hands were bound behind her back, and her head was bowed, but Sirius could see the look in her eyes as she attempted eye-contact with Hermione. It was some madcap plan.

"Yeah," said Sirius, stepping forward, feeling like someone should reply. "We do."

"Then you will die."

"Don't you want to know why?" asked Remus, joining Sirius at the front of the pack. He stood awkwardly, his limbs appearing too long for his body as always, but he didn't waver. "Don't you want to know how we found out about your Horcruxes?"

Voldemort snarled, that was the only word for it.

"Miss Prewett was most helpful in providing me with information," he said, waving his non-wand hand expansively in the direction of Ginny. "I do not require more. Kill them."

"No!" shouted Hermione, leaping forwards, and it was that which sent everyone into action. Lily and James fought with hands joined, James' left-handedness enabling that manoeuvre. Peter was at their side, his face scrunched in concentration, spells leaving his wand at a speed he'd never managed before. All of them fighting, Remus and Hermione either side of Sirius, Dorcas and Adeline at the back, all of them trying as best they could to defend themselves. Luna, suddenly, appearing from nowhere with her plaits coming loose in her hair and another woman at her side. They were still outnumbered, but maybe that didn't matter.

Maybe they'd manage this anyway.


	66. Chapter 66: Tonight

**Chapter Sixty-Six: Tonight**

 _Remus_

 _November 1979, Bodmin Moor_

It was chaos. Immediately after Voldemort's words, the battle had started;, and less than thirty seconds had gone by before everyone was fighting somebody; a confused melee of Death Eaters, the Order of the Phoenix and whatever the others were. Spells flew in all directions. All Remus had time to do was defend himself, and to hope that the others could do the same. They were hopelessly outnumbered by the black-clad ranks of the Death Eaters. They could only assume Voldemort was mortal. They were, therefore, likely on what his mother would have called a hiding to nothing.

But at least they were doing something, he thought, as he set to hurling spells. At least they weren't waiting.

It wasn't a very comforting thought, at least not after a minute or so.

He found himself split up from the others almost immediately, separated by the barrage of spells. A screaming Death Eater charged around, unable to focus on an opponent, causing as much chaos for his side as his enemies. Sirius wasn't much better. If there could have been any more of a plan than to attack whatever enemy was nearest, it would have been impossible to enact it. Remus found himself battling two of them, that and the darkness making it next to impossible to follow what anyone else was doing.

Lily screamed, at least, he thought it was Lily. Peter was closest, his face screwed up with concentration, doing the best he could.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " shouted James, perhaps less than ten feet away from Remus through a thick fog of fighters. The silvery stag took off across the moor. No Dementors, so he was calling for back-up. Good.

Of course, Remus thought, as he leapt sideways out of the way of a Slicing Curse, trying to give back as good as he was getting, back-up could just make all of this more complicated. If he walked into this mess, he'd try to curse Regulus at the very least, even if not some of the rest of them. Hermione and Adeline were suspect, to an observer. He leapt back the other way, a mixture of curses and swear words falling from his mouth as he tried to stay on his feet. The ground seemed to almost shift beneath him; could be his balance was off, could be a spell. He scrabbled with a hand against the dirt, it squelching into the mud as he pushed himself back upright.

" _Sectumsempra!"_ he bellowed. He hated that curse, but they weren't going to win this fighting clean.

He'd have to keep an eye on Hermione and Adeline and Regulus.

" _Avada Kedrava!"_ shouted a Death Eater, behind the one Remus was fighting. Instinctively he ducked, but the spell hit the Death Eater, who fell to the floor with a satisfying thump. The Death Eater nodded almost imperceptibly, fired three non-verbal, harmless spells at Remus, who blocked all of them, and disappeared back into the fray. Regulus. Remus noted the brooch on his cloak, a curled cat. Maybe Regulus didn't need keeping an eye on.

If they all got through this, it'd be a fucking miracle, to borrow a phrase from Sirius.

And, suddenly, Remus decided something. It was a mad idea, really, but it was the best one he had, aside from this business of staying alive, and, right then, it felt just about the most important thing he could have done.

"Ginny Weasley," he shouted, over the din of the battle, making a mad dash towards her, just about visible behind Peter. He hardly thought about what he was saying, interspersing his words with firing spells at the nearest Death Eaters. "Will you marry me?

"Not fucking right now I won't," she shouted, casting a Shield Charm across the both of them, which almost collapsed instantly on contact with a nasty curse. "Bloody idiot."

"I can take it back," he offered. "We can pretend I never said it."

"No, you bloody idiot," she repeated, "but, fucking hell - _Stupefy! -_ you choose now to propose?" She swore several more times in quick succession, between spells, although Remus was not sure if these were directed at him or at the people they were fighting.

"Stop swearing," Sirius advised, leaping across them to cast a second Shield Charm over theirs, which had sizzled out under repeated attack from their opponents. Remus shoved both of them down to the floor as a volley of Killing Curses shot over their heads. "It impedes your spell casting speed."

"Stop interrupting our romantic moment."

"Battle, Gin, you mean battle."

"No - _Incendio!_ \- he was proposing! Why are all you blokes idiots?"

"I'm emotionally stunted," Sirius said, with a grin, "Luna told me. I can't explain Remus though, he's clearly just an idiot." Sirius waved, ridiculously, and then darted off into the battle once more, making a beeline for Hermione by the looks of it. Remus would have shaken his head at him in despair, but he didn't have time.

Remus turned to Ginny. There she was, crouching on the floor still, tucking the ends of her hair behind her ear with one hand while furiously casting spells with the other. She dodged one, leaping to her feet for a better angle to fight from, her baggy jumper swinging out as she did so. She was fierce, more than able to look after herself, and yet he felt some kind of urge to protect her.

He suspected she'd be outraged if he said that.

Maybe that was what he liked about her. She was beautiful, too, and that didn't hurt, bloody hell, he'd never thought he'd be able to get a girl like her. But she could hold her own, and she'd never let him down.

"So what about it?" he asked, jumping to his feet himself and joining her in the thick of it.

"What about what?" she asked, turning to him for a split second before deftly ducking a curse. "The proposal? Of course it's a yes, you moron."

"Moron means carrot in Welsh," said Remus, which was entirely the wrong thing to say, because it didn't make any sense, but he'd never been any good with women. And it was either that or thank you, and thank you didn't seem appropriate. Or possibly a Stunning Spell aimed at Rabastan Lestrange, the unwanted third party in this proposal, hellbent on killing both of them.

"Alright," she said, raising an eyebrow as Lestrange fell to the floor by her wand. "Though, to be fair, that's a carrot reference I haven't heard before." She grinned at him, and then, because this was a battle after all, managed to deftly explode a Death Eater. At least that was what Remus thought that charm had done. It was better not to know, sometimes.

They were separated after that, Ginny charging off to assist Luna and Remus becoming embroiled in something Sirius and Hermione had started but seemed unable to finish. James' reinforcements began to arrive, pops of Apparition and the sounds of more and more spells being cast, every so often the scream of a death. Aurors, too, summoned by someone. A confusion of bodies spreading across the moorland, flashes of light and screams and shouts and chaos and cacophony. Remus was no beginner at battles, but even he had never seen anything like this.

"Alright?" Hermione asked, pulling him to the floor with a grab at his sleeve as a Killing Curse whistled over their heads. "You're bleeding."

It was Remus' turn to pull them down, as a second came in, lower and faster. "Hadn't noticed."

"Shouldn't kill you," she said, leaping up with him as they both cast their own Killing Curses in tandem. "Congratulations on the engagement," she added, as the Death Eater fell to the floor, killed by one or both curses hitting their mark, his mask skittering onto the floor to reveal the face of none other than Antonin Dolohov. "Good. He's a twat."

"Was," said Remus, already spinning to the next enemy. Sirius was battling this one, but he was slowing, and the Death Eater didn't seem to have the same problem. He sent off several spells in quick succession, none of which hit their mark. This one wasn't going to go down without a fight, but then, neither would they.

He checked around the battlefield in short glances, as that was all he had time for. Peter duelled Rabastan Lestrange, Dorcas had taken on Bellatrix, and Albus Dumbledore fought a duel of impressive proportions with Voldemort. A second Sirius Black, his original one, in fact, charged onto the battlefield, immediately making spell contact with someone who could only have been Alecto Carrow. Everyone had a foe, or more than one. Bodies were beginning to litter the ground, too, not just the one he and Hermione had killed or the one that Regulus had dispatched, but more, and at least one of his own side. He recognised Frank Longbottom sprawled on the ground, possibly breathing, actually, and Emmeline Vance, certainly not. Remus had to concentrate. He couldn't allow himself to get distracted.

"Where's Hermione?" Sirius asked, the older Sirius, as the Death Eater in front of them Disapparated, allowing them a moment's respite. "She was there."

"Fighting," Remus answered, turning on his heel at the sound of an Apparition behind them. It was a trick he'd seen before, so he got in the first curse. He had a fiancee to survive for.

 _Ginny_

"You're supposed to be fucking dead," Ginny screamed, in the approximate direction of Luna, although it was difficult to tell in the mess of all of this. "I thought you were dead!"

"Oh," said Luna, calmly as any fucking thing, "yes, I suppose you might have thought that."

"I suppose I might fucking well have thought that!"

"Come on," said Luna, "I'll show you."

Ginny reappeared, against her will, with a feeling of intense dread in a room that looked remarkably like it could be back where she'd only just come from. Some kind of overdone bedroom, with a definite air of 'was abandoned in the 1940s when the owner was murdered'. Not that one could tell that from a distance, she supposed, but Ginny had a feeling.

"Luna," she said, firmly pointing her wand at her friend. "If this isn't you, I swear I'll…"

Her threat was interrupted, and a more dramatic person might say ruined, by the appearances of Hermione, frantic and frizzy-haired, and a dark-haired woman Ginny didn't recognise.

"Who the fuck are you?" she asked, wheeling around to face the incomers, but keeping her wand on Luna. "Bloody hell, what the fuck are we doing here?"

"You swear a lot," said the dark-haired woman. "I don't think it's necessary."

Luna nodded, her hands in her pockets, looking entirely like this is how she'd planned everything to go. "I've always said that to her, but I've never found that she listens. She's the youngest of seven, you know. Youngest children always think the rules don't apply to them, don't you think?"

"That isn't relevant," said Ginny, biting back the urge to throw a 'fucking' in there. "What did you say to me when Harry broke up with me to go on his camping trip?"

"That he would come back like a frisbee."

"It's a boomerang," muttered Hermione, who Ginny had almost forgotten about already, and who was apparently unable to prevent herself from correcting Luna. "Frisbees don't come back."

"And Harry did, so I was right," said Luna, cheerfully.

Ginny stifled another urge to swear. "And who are you?" she asked the other woman.

"Betty Wright. Pleased to meet you."

"That doesn't really answer the question," said Hermione. She was worn from the battle already, a rip in her jacket and a huge, muddy graze down the side of her face. Her hair had come loose from the ponytail she'd put it in, some of it stuck into the graze. "Why are you here?"

"That," said Betty, "is an entirely different question. And the one I would pose is not 'why am I here?' but 'why are we here?'. We are, after all, together in this. A collective, if that is the terminology one would use, or perhaps a coven. That is the collective noun for witches, after all, although my favourite collective noun is perhaps a murder of crows. Or a tower of giraffes. That suits them."

"Fine," said Hermione, when it became clear no answer was forthcoming other than that. "Why are we here?"

"He has another soul container," said Luna, now inspecting her nails as if they were discussing one of Sirius' irritating television programmes. "And it's here, somewhere, and he can't have hidden it very well because he wouldn't have had enough time. So we're going to find it, and destroy it."

"The cup was in Gringotts," Hermione said. "Adeline and I found it, far more successfully than last time, and it was destroyed. All of them are destroyed, Luna, don't worry."

"Last time?"

"I'll explain the dragon incident later," said Luna, putting her hand on Betty's upper arm in what Ginny thought was a very familiar gesture. "It's actually quite funny, although I don't expect it was at the time. Anyway, that wasn't the last one."

"It was. The others haven't been made yet, who the bloody hell is she by the way?" asked Ginny, as, after all, going into all of this with some random woman present was a terrible idea. "Fuck this. We've got a fight to win. I'm going back to help the others actually kill Voldemort, not lurk around here in his father's childhood home doing nothing."

"Planning isn't nothing," said Betty, a phrase Ginny distinctly remembered Luna using. "I believe I have introduced myself. Betty Wright. If you'd like some more information as to my identity, I believe you lived next door to my mother for a while, until her murder."

"Doesn't help," said Hermione, "and, besides, I'm with Ginny. Either you tell us exactly what's going on, or I'm going back to help Sirius and the others."

"Department of Mysteries."

"What?"

"I work with Luna at the Department of Mysteries. I suppose we should tell you that I'm aware of almost everything, including the false identities and the time-travelling element of your story, and that Luna and I have, in fact, borrowed said time-travelling element in order to pull off a sort of trick, I suppose. Hopefully it will work out to be an effective one. Do you understand, now?"

"No," said Ginny, folding her arms, as Hermione nodded.

"Sort of," Hermione clarified. "I've got so many questions, but I don't think we have time for any of them now."

"We don't," said Betty. "Come on." She turned and strode out of the room, the heels of her boots tapping on the parquet floor. Luna tootled after her, and Ginny looked at Hermione, who shrugged, and then they both followed on. It was the only thing to do if they wanted to know anything about what was going on. Even if Ginny would, frankly, rather not know.

The hallways were dark and quiet, and Ginny found herself hugging the line of the wall, as if somebody would be able to get her if she walked in the centre of the floor. She followed Luna, who followed Betty, and Hermione brought up the rear. This was a terrible idea. The wallpaper was flocked, for fuck's sake, and only an hour or so ago she'd been here as a prisoner. She'd talked her way out of that, and then she'd come back.

She'd seen Luna's dead body, or so she'd thought.

And as they rounded a corner to head towards the room that Ginny had thought she'd seen said sight in, Ginny's stomach began to tense. It could be a dream, she thought. No, this qualified as a fucking nightmare. Voldemort, dead bodies, war, creepy Department of Mysteries with too many opinions on nouns, and all of the rest of it. She went to twist at an engagement ring that wasn't there.

She was happy with Remus, but for a moment all she wanted to do was wake up in her old bed, her old time, with Harry next to her and no more to worry about than the World Cup and what shade of blue it was that her mother wanted for the wedding. Because there she'd been through her shit, and there weren't Horcruxes or bloody Unspeakables that were friends with Luna or dead bodies and people fucking reappearing and she'd done her fighting, and none of this was happening.

Life didn't work like that, so she tightened her grip on her wand. She was here, and she had Remus, and she was making it back to him. No matter what this was.

"What, exactly, are you trying to do?" Hermione asked, three feet from the door, and was shushed by Luna.

Betty was the one to step forwards and twist the doorknob, not with her hand but with a lazy flick of her wand. The door opened, and Ginny saw exactly what she'd seen the last time she was here. Two dead bodies. MacNair, who she'd watched be murdered, and Luna's. She made to turn to see what they meant by this, and was met by Hermione pointing her wand firmly into Luna's face.

"Prove it's you," she said, her hand shaking. "Prove it's you."

"She already did," said Ginny, not that she had any answers. Not that she wasn't also tempted to stick her wand out. The only thing stopping her was that adding more wands to a stand-off only made the likelihood of someone casting a deadly curse so much higher. "I questioned her."

"Again," said Hermione. "We need to do it again." Her voice shook too, and there was something in the way she said it that made Ginny forget her misgiving of only a couple of seconds ago and raise her wand. Betty's went up, too, and three of the four now pointed wands at one another. Ginny trained hers onto Betty. Only Luna didn't point hers, instead keeping her hands in her pockets.

"We have to trust each other," she said. "Trust me."

"Why?" Ginny asked. "I want to trust you, but, bloody hell, that's your dead body."

 _Sirius_

Sirius made a dash across the battlefield. Hermione was nowhere to be seen, and, yes, that meant nothing because he couldn't see much of anything or anyone at all, but he had to try. It was Hermione.

But he got nowhere much at all, aside from in the middle of a different group of people fighting one another with all of the energy they had, and nowhere near Hermione. He was in the thick of the battle, now, almost at the epicentre, under spellfire from all sides at once. Beside him was his brother, of course, and he was pretending to battle for the other side, but Sirius knew the truth. They both knew the truth.

He couldn't say anything to Regulus, so he settled for winking, something that Regulus probably hadn't even seen. But they were together. On the same side. He and Regulus and Hermione, Luna and Ginny, Remus, James and Lily and Peter, even, all of them fighting together. Outnumbered, yes, but Sirius had fought worse odds and won. Optimism was the wrong word for what he felt as he fought, but it wasn't far off. They were together. Voldemort was mortal.

" _Avada Kedrava!"_ Regulus shouted, and the spell narrowly missed both Peter Pettigrew and the masked figure he fought. Sirius didn't like that Regulus used the Killing Curse. Not that Sirius wouldn't kill, not in a fight like this, but not that curse. It felt like a line that he wasn't willing to cross, not yet.

Sirius' own spells were finding at least some marks, but the battle was, instead of spreading as widely as it could, concentrated in and around where Voldemort himself battled Dumbledore, and fucking hell, that made it harder to aim. He tried his best, back-to-back with his brother, catching a vague sight of the other him tearing across the battlefield just as he'd done minutes ago. He'd better not get too close to the other Sirius. Too much explaining.

The other Sirius had no such issues.

It wouldn't have happened maybe if he hadn't tripped, his foot catching on a stone as he ran towards James and Lily, but he tripped. The way he fell was what did it. The other Sirius went sideways, and as he flung out an arm to catch himself, he caught sight of Regulus. Regulus, who was busy shouting yet another Killing Curse towards a clutch of Order members. Regulus, who had a snake clasp on his cloak and a Death Eater mask still attached to him, even though his face was now visible, and who looked like he was fighting for the wrong side.

The other Sirius roared and, as he pulled himself upright, changed direction, and Sirius, himself, he wanted to do something but he was too far away. Regulus hadn't seen what was happening yet, but it was all too clear to Sirius. He knew that look on the other Sirius' face.

"No!" he shouted, dodging the curse that was being flung his way and trying to make his way to his brother, or the other version of himself, he wasn't sure if it mattered which. This couldn't happen. They couldn't fight. "He's on your side!" he shouted, frantically, but only Regulus stopped to listen.

This gave the other Sirius the advantage, and he screwed up his face and hurled a Killing Curse straight at Regulus. Regulus went down, down with a frozen, startled look on his face, and Sirius wanted to scream, until he realised that he was on top of his brother, his hair in both of their faces, crashing onto the ground. Regulus blinked, only once, but it was enough for Sirius to know he was alive. Sirius scrambled for his wand, as the other Sirius was bearing down on them, and his wand was already raised.

"No!" he shouted, again. "Sirius, don't!"

"You had chances," said Sirius, the younger Sirius, and the older one was still searching for his wand when he felt Regulus push him over. He hadn't found his wand. But Regulus was back on his feet, if looking dazed, fighting the younger version of Sirius. Sirius knew the other him wouldn't give in, not easily. He remembered how angry he was at this time, the first time around, when the war was in full swing and it had all seemed hopeless.

He still couldn't find his wand.

" _Accio!_ " he shouted, and nothing happened, which didn't surprise him as he'd never been able to do wandless magic. Remus said it required finesse. So what could Sirius do that didn't involve finesse?

Three things happened all at once before he could properly answer that; he saw his wand, snapped in half a couple of feet away, Bellatrix loomed up behind the other Sirius, and Regulus, the other Sirius, and Bellatrix simultaneously cast a Killing Curse. The air lit itself with green light, and Sirius could do nothing more than pull at his brother's legs. Regulus was closest. That was why he went for him.

Bellatrix laughed, the horrible laugh he'd heard before he died in the Department of Mysteries, and Sirius pulled harder.

Two of the curses sailed over their heads, one splintering a rock into a thousand pieces behind them. One of them hit a mark. Sirius Black, the other version of himself, hit the ground with a sickening thud. Sirius went to his pocket for his wand, having forgotten already that it was broken on the grass. All he was holding was a clump of Regulus' robes, muddy and dirty and torn, and nothing that he could wreak any kind of revenge on.

His brother had killed him.

Sort of. Technically, it was another version of him, technically he was still alive. It was all a technicality. He was alive, and he was dead, and somehow, he laughed. Like Bellatrix would. He didn't think he was going mad, but he didn't know what else to do. Because in any other situation, he'd have tried to kill the person who'd done the killing, and that was Regulus, and that wouldn't be right. It wouldn't fucking help.

He supposed that this solved the question of what would happen to him if the other him died. He was alive. That didn't help, either.

"Well done, little cousin!" Bellatrix cackled, and if Sirius had had his wand, he'd have killed her then and there. "I should never have doubted your desire to cleanse the family! But our work is not done!" And in a spin of her cloak, she was gone. That left Regulus and Sirius, and the other Sirius, and he was dead, and they were left with one working wand and nothing constructive to say to each other.

"Bollocks," said Regulus, in a strangled voice, if as posh as ever. "I killed you. I killed my brother." He looked as if he might laugh, too. It wasn't fucking funny. It was a fucking disaster, but Sirius was shaking, and he couldn't work out if it was with laughter or fear or just with the relief that nobody was firing deadly curses at him any more.

"I…" said Regulus, his face as white as a ghost. "I killed you."

Sirius made a decision. Letting go of his brother's robes, the sickening feeling in his stomach only increasing, he crawled across the few feet to the other him, dead on the floor, and he pulled the wand from his hand. "Shit," he said, because what else did someone say? He wasn't angry. He didn't think he was angry.

No, he was, but it wasn't at Regulus, it was at all of fucking this.

Sirius pulled himself to standing, and Regulus seemed to cower a little, there on the floor still.

"Get up," he said. "We're still fighting. I'm going to deal with this later. I'm going to kill Bellatrix, and then I'm going to…" Sirius allowed himself to tail off, instead pulling Regulus up and back into the battle with him. "And you're not going to kill anyone else on our side," he said, to Regulus, still pale and shaking. Regulus didn't have the experience Sirius had in not thinking about things. He wanted to run and scream and curse, yes, but he was going to curse Bellatrix, not go mad with the fact that he was dead. He could do this. He could fucking do this.

He wasn't sure he could. A small part of him, gnawing away in there at his better instincts, wanted to turn his wand onto his brother. It had been an accident. Sirius had seen it himself. He had to go and do something useful, and he had to go and do it now.

He had to go and do it before he did anything stupid.

Clutching his new wand, his old wand, his palm sweating and his hand shaking, he didn't say anything else to Regulus. Instead, he tore himself away and he turned and ran across the moor. Bellatrix. If he blamed Bellatrix, he didn't have to blame Regulus.

 _Hermione_

 _November 1979, Riddle House_

"Magic is all about intent," Luna said, and Hermione wondered if she'd missed something. She had, she knew that. Luna and Ginny had been here before, even though nobody had thought to explain to her when or why or how, except for Voldemort's cryptic comments. And there was Betty, Jo's daughter Betty, who didn't make any sense in all of this, and yet seemed to be what was holding it together.

"It isn't," Hermione said. They'd had this argument before. "Magic is about the careful application of rules and using spells to create known outcomes."

"Magic is what magic is," said Luna, which was even less helpful, "and magic is about intent. I didn't intend to die, but that Luna did."

"You're Luna. You proved that, twice." Ginny was losing patience now, Hermione could see that, and she'd adopted Sirius' pacing habit. Back and forth and back and forth, until Hermione had had it.

" _Impedimenta,"_ she said, and Ginny stopped. She glared at Hermione.

"Not helpful."

"No," said Luna. "I don't think either of you are being helpful, do you?"

"Bollocks to helpful," muttered Ginny.

"As I was saying," Luna continued, as if oblivious, "magic is about intent. I feel like I've been trying to explain this for some months, now, although it has been a confusing evening, I admit."

"You can say that again," muttered Ginny.

"I say that," said Luna, once again ignoring Ginny, "because there has been more than one of me, and I've rather struggled to keep myself straight. I don't think I could have done this for an entire year like you did, Hermione. It's really far too complicated to keep up for more than one night."

"I feel like getting to your point might be necessary," said Betty, looking almost bored. "Why aren't you dead, for example? Why are we here?"

"Ah. Yes. I'm not dead because I simply never intended to die. And that Luna," she indicated herself, "did. I mean, I suppose that's a Luna, or it is to all intents and purposes, anyway. Regulus assures me the plan worked, even though I don't think he knew all of it. Does he know Legilimency?"

"Yes," said Hermione. Not that she'd ever asked him, but Sirius had said he'd thought Regulus could. "Probably."

"Anyway," said Luna, blithely ignoring Hermione, "Regulus did some things. And Voldemort used that Luna," she continued, waving her hand, "to make another soul container. and I rather think that we ought to be focusing on destroying that, rather than discussing the ins and outs of exactly I come to remain in existence. Ah," she said, crossing the floor, "there it is. Regulus thought he'd use that. He's a good spy, you know. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to get out of here myself, to begin with."

"Are you sure?" Ginny asked, still frozen in place by Hermione's spell. Hermione released her, and Ginny stomped over to join Luna. "It isn't hidden. That isn't his mode of operation."

"His modus operandi," said Luna, "is to remain immortal, and to kill enemies. I expect he prioritised the enemy killing. Also, from what Hermione told me before, it does fit. It's a place that has significance to him, it being the site of his first deliberate murders. The artefact is one that holds significance. It's merely a rush job, if you could call it that."

"Yes," said Hermione, glancing over her shoulder. She didn't know why. It wasn't like she could see how the battle was going from here. Instead she was stuck here with Luna, who was possibly going quietly insane, and looking around wasn't going to help her here. "We need to prioritise too."

They were so far off the plan that it didn't even bear thinking about. The plans were little dots of parchment, way off in the distance behind them. The plans were burning in the mess that was all of this.

"So we destroy this, we go back to the battle, we kill him. Easy." Ginny shrugged. "Can't see a flaw."

"Really?" asked Betty. "I can see six or seven at a first glance."

"Fiendfyre worked before," said Hermione, trying to take control of the situation, perhaps in vain. It was all so ridiculous that it'd reached this point. But it did make sense that Voldemort would want another Horcrux, Luna's explanation made some sense, and the quicker they dealt with this, the quicker they could go back. "There's a garden out the back. We can do it there."

"It doesn't seem the worst plan," said Betty, and Hermione had already worked out enough about this woman to know that that was going to be the best she could hope for there.

"Let's go, then," said Hermione. "Luna?"

Luna picked up the Horcrux with no sense of the gravity of the situation.

"I don't like it," she said, "but that's to be expected."

"Exactly."

Hermione wheeled around on hearing that; it was a male voice that had spoken.

"You didn't think it'd be left unattended, did you?"

 _Regulus_

 _November 1979, Bodmin Moor_

He had not realised he was standing so still until a curse almost took his ear off, that and Adeline arriving next to him, panting and out-of-breath. She was pregnant, and she should not be here, and yet he had sent her into this. Because she has asked, he remembered. But he had killed his brother. One of his brothers. He had never fully considered the implications of having two brothers, if two manifestations of the same brother, and now, one of them was dead.

"You have to go," he said, grabbing her shoulder. She looked shocked, he registered, and so she should be. "You are in danger here, you have to go, you have to leave."

"No," she said, and Regulus also vaguely registered her wand moving and words of spells coming from her mouth. "You'd just have died if I hadn't been here, what are you doing?"

"I killed my brother," he said, indicating his feet, and she merely looked confused for a moment before her eyes travelled to the actual location of his brother.

"Oh."

It did not seem the reaction he expected.

"We've still got to survive," she said, firmly, and pulled him forwards, out of the way of some red light. "I'm going to make you leave, if you're just going to stand here looking like a Flobberworm."

"I killed my brother." Even as he said it Regulus could understand that this was absurd. His brother was also alive. Adeline was alive. He was alive, and a Sirius was dead, and he was fighting both for Voldemort and against him, a none of this was making the sense that it ought to.

"Regulus Black," said Adeline, snapping at him, "as much as I wish we could travel back in time to save him, we can't, we need to fight!"

"Travel back in time," said Regulus, because that was what made him think of something that he could do, and he slashed with his wand at an enemy attacking Remus, "I have to find Hermione."

"You have to what?" Adeline asked, her own wand jabbing in the direction of a Death Eater who paused, momentarily, when trying to establish who she was and what side she was on. The spell was not strong enough to do more than stall him, however, and Regulus was forced to intervene, bringing him crashing down to the floor, unconscious. "Now?"

"Now," said Regulus, firmly.

But his search of the battlefield, interspersed by defending himself and others, and trailed by Adeline, did not find Hermione anywhere. She'd got here. She'd know how to get back. He expanded his search to include Luna, who entirely seemed to be the sort of person who would know something like how to travel backwards in time to save your brother. An hour, an hour would be all he would need. Perhaps two, dependant on exactly how long it took him to find someone, anyone, who would be able to help him. And they had come back years, years to save him, which they had succeeded in, and now all that he had to do was repeat their feat, to save Sirius instead of himself.

"Hermione!" he shouted, "Luna!"

He had lost Adeline, left her behind in the maelstrom that was this fight, but she would be alright. She was alive, and Sirius was not. He was going to find somebody that would help him, and they would all be fine, and this would not be a nightmare, this would be a success.

Regulus did not find Hermione, and he did not find Luna, but what he did find was his cousin Bellatrix, and the other Sirius. They were battling, as was everyone around them, but this was not a battle like the others. This was a battle that was somehow faster, more frenzied, more powerful than any of the others that filled the space around them, half of it curses, half of it screamed insults. Bellatrix did not seem to understand exactly who it was she was fighting - of course she would not - but even with the little she did understand, she was fighting not just to kill but to end Sirius. And he fought the same in return.

And then he heard a scream, a scream that was Adeline's.

Regulus stopped, panic rising in every part of him, and he did not notice the spell that hit him from the side.


	67. Chapter 67: Together

**Chapter Sixty-Seven: Together**

 _Harry and Ron_

 _June 2002, The Burrow_

"So, as you can see," said Harry, "it's all a bit confusing."

Tonks raised an eyebrow. "A bit?" she asked. "And, by the way, your tea is undrinkable."

Harry sipped his own experimentally, having only been swilling it around uselessly in the mug before now, and spat it back out.

"Bollocks," he said. "I think I put milk in one Molly's herbals."

"Whatever it was, don't do it again," said Tonks, vanishing hers with a flick of her wand. Harry copied her. Only Ron didn't, but then, Ron was still turning the box with the engagement ring in it over and over in his hands and staring at some mid-point between the table and the window. He'd been doing that for half an hour, stopping it only to occasionally mutter that he didn't understand.

Harry didn't understand, either, for what it was worth.

"It seems to me," said Tonks, slowly, "that Xenophilius might have been confused. That's the most obvious explanation for the fact that you thought Luna was missing, isn't it? Because she denies she ever was, she was working late, and her boss backs up her story. Mind you, everyone in that department is weird as hell, but there's got to be some downsides to genius."

"Hundreds," said Harry.

"Indeed. Makes me glad I'm not one." She got up, heaving her heavily pregnant stomach around the table. "More tea? Better tea, this time?"

Harry nodded.

"Anyway," she continued, "whatever happened there is something to work out afterwards. That's what Kingsley would tell us, if he wasn't in bloody Canada. He'd better be back by the time this beast comes out, let me tell you. But he's got a solid point. Luna's here, and even if she was missing, she doesn't have any information and the case is still wide open. You ought to, if you ask me, focus on what you've still got to solve."

"Kingsley's not in Canada," said Harry, because he was certain that Kingsley wasn't. He rubbed his eyes. He hadn't been getting much sleep lately. "Who's the Minister?"

Tonks almost dropped the kettle onto her foot.

"Who's the Minister? Merlin's beard, Harry, you need to get some more sleep. Take a holiday, or something. Amelia Bones has been Minster for seven years now. Didn't you campaign for her?"

"Probably," said Harry, shaking his head. "I think you're right. When this is all over, I'm going to go on holiday."

"Take Ron with you," Tonks advised. Harry looked over to where Ron was now slumped onto the table, and nodded.

 _Luna_

 _November 1979, Riddle House_

The Death Eater was shorter than average, clearly male, and in need of a haircut, Luna noticed; that, and he had his wand trained firmly on Betty. Perhaps he'd decided she was the ringleader, or thought she was the weakest target, or had some kind of sentimental value to the others of them, or perhaps it didn't matter but the fact was that it was happening. And somebody needed to do something about it.

Luna didn't know whether that somebody was her.

"I'll kill you all," said the Death Eater, "and I'll be rewarded by my Lord."

Luna didn't really think it was what he'd said that mattered, but the way he drew his wand back slightly, and so she decided to see if she could be quicker.

It turned out that she was, not that this seemed to make the situation all that much better. She'd said the words of a curse, and so had he, and Hermione, but Hermione had said different words, and there was a thudding sound that came with an awful finality.

"Luna," said Ginny, "you killed him."

"Yes," she said. "I suppose I did."

"No suppose about it," Ginny responded, going up to the Death Eater and poking him with her trainer. "He's as dead as a doorhanger."

Hermione looked like she wanted to say something, but just shook her head instead. Maybe she disapproved of Luna's actions, but Luna wasn't sure that was it. It didn't look like that was it.

"I didn't really want to," said Luna. "It happened."

"He would have killed us," said Betty, stepping forwards to stand beside Luna, who thought this was the most helpful thing anyone had said so far. Betty's hand on her shoulder helped, too. "We've done what we came here to do, anyway. Shall we go?"

"One thing first," said Luna, fairly sure that what she was about to do next would be well-received, and what was life without a little risk, anyway? She'd killed a man in almost entirely cold blood, even though it was somewhat of a stupid metaphor, anyway, and now this didn't seem so daunting in comparison. Maybe it was the fragment of the soul she'd just lost that'd been holding her back. She didn't think making a Horcrux seemed appealing, but she'd miss the bit of soul nonetheless.

She was getting rather off track.

So before she could overthink whether this was a terrible idea, much like most of her attempts at this sort of thing before, at least with people she liked as much as this, she span on her heel and, fairly inexpertly, kissed her on the lips. Betty, that was. Not any of the rest of them. She tasted like everything, and Luna could have stayed like that forever.

Oh, she'd been so sure all of this would work, but not this part.

In the background, somewhere far away, someone cheered (Ginny? It was probably Ginny), and Luna pulled away, waiting for some sort of reaction. A quiet letdown, probably. Polite, hopefully.

Instead she kissed Luna back, and, well, that had been an outcome Luna hadn't been expecting.

"Got an evil being to kill," said Betty, as they split apart once more, their hands somehow wrapped around each other. "But we're coming back to this, don't you think that we're not."

"Yeah, come on," said Ginny. "Honestly, what's it with all the declarations of love today?"

"Danger," said Hermione, shaking her head. "It does funny things to people."

"Remus proposed," said Ginny. "Which is, I suppose, relevant at this point, isn't it?"

"Really?" Hermione squeaked, rushing over to hug Ginny and squashing her face into the slightly startled Ginny's shoulder. "Congratulations! It is congratulations, isn't it?" she continued, removing her head from Ginny's shoulder. "You did say yes? Tell me you said something, at least."

"Obviously." Ginny scrunched up her face. "Might have called him a twat as well."

"He might have deserved it," said Betty, who, Luna realised, was now holding her hand. "I don't know. I've never met him. But, as I believe has been said, we currently have more pressing issues to deal with."

"Yeah," said Ginny. "Shit. Remus!" And with that she Disapparated, taking Hermione with her.

"We'd better go too," said Betty. Luna vaguely registered that, but only vageuly, because she had become a little distracted by the Death Eater she'd killed. It was something she felt like she needed to address. She wasn't sure how. Because how did you come to terms with the idea of taking life?

Crossing the room to him, she crouched down and removed the mask from his face. He was little older than he, she thought, old enough to know better, but not old enough to have everything entirely sorted out in his head yet. He could have still been a decent person, if not a good one, had he survived. Did that bear thinking about?

"I don't know his name," she said. "I don't know who he is."

"We could find out, after, if that helps," said Betty, joining her. "And if it doesn't, you don't ever have to know. But he'd have killed us, you heard the way he spoke. So, if you'd prefer to look at it this way, killing him saved our lives."

"I didn't mean to do it. It wasn't on purpose. If you can believe that. I suppose an argument could be made for that in any circumstance, if someone was good enough with their words."

"Someone who's good with words can make an argument for anything," said Betty. "I've made a career out of it, you could say. It doesn't mean I'm right."

Luna didn't think that was helpful.

"You have to mean it to use the Killing Curse."

"There's a body of arithmancial thought that thinks that, yes. But, again, you can argue anything if you try hard enough. There's conflicting evidence, you know." Her hand was in Luna's once more, a feeling Luna found comforting. "We can look it up. Afterwards. Together. And, in the meantime, you saved us from danger."

"Which we have waiting for us anyway."

"Yes. We do. But not as much."

"I think you're trying to make me feel better, and I appreciate that." Luna stared down at the body once more. "But, you see, I'm not the same Luna I was a little while ago. And that makes me feel funny, like there's something horribly wrong with me. I'm not sure if I can name the feeling. I've lost a bit of my soul, so perhaps it's that."

"Probably because it isn't one feeling." Betty looked down at the body with Luna. "You've lost some soul, but you've not lost any of who you are. You're not going to become a You-Know-Who."

"I suppose." Luna stood up, and Betty stood alongside her. There was a silence for a moment, but it wasn't particularly awkward; it was an acknowledgement of something, Luna decided. "A lot has happened today," she said.

"Time travel skews with your perception of time," said Betty. "It's just past midnight. Almost nothing has happened today."

"Yesterday, then," said Luna, waving her arm around the room. Her own dead body still decorated the floor, something which she was still somewhat confused as to the inner workings of that one, but it had worked as Betty had assured her it would. She hadn't intended to die, and she hadn't.

"Do you ever wonder," she asked, her eyes never moving from her own dead body, "how any of this stacks up into the possibility of a life?"

"After this is over," said Betty, her hand slipping once more into Luna's own, "we'll work on that as well. We'll look at the probabilities if you like. We can study anything, Luna, we can try to understand anything that we want."

"Let's go," she said. And so they did.

 _Peter_

 _November 1979, Bodmin Moor_

There was a lot of screaming.

Peter had never liked fighting. It was loud, too loud, lights flashing and people everywhere and impossible to follow what was going on. Just noise and mess and light and the screaming. He wanted to hide. But he couldn't, because Sirius was dead, he'd seen it happen, and Peter knew who'd killed him.

He tore across the battlefield, as fast as he could go, and if he got hit by a curse that was how it was. Regulus Black was in his sights. He zigzagged through the fighters himself, as if he was also hunting down someone, though Peter wasn't sure who that could be. Probably running back to Voldemort. He'd killed his brother, and wasn't that what he was supposed to have done months ago? He was a Death Eater through and through.

His wand hand shook as he got closer, a Killing Curse narrowly skimming in front of him. Peter didn't know what he was going to do when he got there. He'd never been any good in a fight. But this time he had to do something, because Sirius had been killed, and somebody had to do something about that. He, Peter Pettigrew, was going to kill Regulus Black, he was going to kill him or he was going to die trying.

And he was almost there.

The grass was wet and there was too much noise.

He pointed his wand at Regulus and he cast the first spell that came into his head; a combination of the noise and the uncertainty and the fact that there was a Death Eater right behind him, too. He cast the first spell that came into his head, not even certain exactly what it was. The spell hit it's mark. Regulus Black went crashing down into the mud, and Peter didn't feel much of anything at all.

Wasn't it supposed to feel good, getting revenge? Wasn't he supposed to feel like he'd won?

Instead Peter's hand still shook, and his legs felt weak, and he wanted to run from the battlefield. He took an experimental step forwards. A spell whizzed past him, an inch to the left of his hip. He didn't have time to stand here working out what he had or hadn't done.

He could do this.

Peter ran, away from Regulus Black, back into the fray of the battle, because he certainly didn't plan to let anyone else he loved die.

 _Sirius_

This was what it felt like to want to use the Killing Curse. This was how the hatred rose and rose until it felt like it was going to consume him, and it all came rushing back. Every time he'd wanted to use this curse before came back, dancing in front of his eyes as he ran, and every time before he'd stood his ground, he'd not cast the curse. He'd killed, yes, but he'd never cast a Killing Curse, a distinction that'd always seemed important.

Not any more.

If he couldn't blame Regulus, and he couldn't, because his brother hadn't wanted to do it, he'd have to blame Bellatrix. It was that which propelled him onwards, that and the impending sense of doom. That and Hermione - where the fuck was Hermione? - and Regulus, Ginny, who he hadn't seen for a while either now he thought about it, or while thoughts ran through his head faster than his legs propelled him across the mud and grass, anyway. Luna, too. Remus. All of the rest of the people he'd said he'd protect. Hermione said it wasn't his job. Hermione was wrong.

The grass was turning to mud under his feet, and twice, three times, he almost slipped, much like the other version of him had done. Too much rain, too many people fighting, that'd make mud. Too many bodies, too. Sirius leapt over one, because with the darkness and the flash of the spellfire almost blinding him, he hadn't seen it coming. He recognised the person as an Auror. Who, he couldn't tell.

He had to get to Bellatrix.

If he got to Bellatrix, he didn't have to blame Regulus, and he didn't have to die again, and he knew what she'd done, would do, to Hermione, and all of this meant that he had to get to Bellatrix. A small part of Sirius' brain reminded him that this wasn't about Bellatrix, it was about Voldemort, but it wasn't, was it? It was about ending it, and to end it, he had to end all of it.

Hermione would have a thousand things to say, most of them no or stop or don't, and he loved her, but he couldn't do any of those.

Sirius dived as a Killing Curse swept his way, thrown by a huge blond Death Eater who seemed to have lost the plot and was firing indiscriminately. Sirius watched one of the Death Eater's own comrades go down thanks to the huge blond one's spells, and Lily narrowly miss one, and from his place crouched, somehow next to the dead Auror, he sent a few spells of his own skimming along the floor at the huge Death Eater's ankles. He too went down, though squirming, wriggling, not dead, and Lily glanced around for her saviour. Seeing nothing, she went back to the fight, James less than two feet from her, fighting back-to-back.

He ducked down behind the Auror again, trying to get his bearings. He was an older man, his wand still clutched firmly in his hand, his mouth half-open as if he'd been casting a spell when he fell. He looked familiar, but Sirius still couldn't put a name to him, and he should be on his way. He reached out and closed the man's eyes before he left, though. Seemed right.

And then he heard a cackle, and that could only be Bellatrix.

So Sirius leapt to his feet, not even seeing the curse that skinned his arm, causing it to split from elbow to wrist, but it wasn't his wand arm, so it didn't matter. He bellowed, not even words but a noise, and he began sprinting. To Bellatrix. And this time, she wouldn't kill him, or send him spinning through space and time on a technicality. No, it'd go differently this time.

"Sirius!" shouted Hermione, there she was, paused in the middle of the fight, spells illuminating the sky behind her. She was beautiful, wasn't she, and if he'd done anything right in the whole of his life then it was her. "Sirius!" she shouted again. Her hair had come loose, and there was a graze up one arm, under a partially ripped sleeve, but she was alive and unharmed, and he had to make sure she stayed that way. Yes, she could look after herself, but he was going to help.

Hermione shouted his name again, but he turned away and kept going. Bellatrix was duelling Dorcas Meadowes, someone that hadn't been on Sirius' list of people to save but probably should have been, he liked Dorcas, so he mentally revised his list as he got close enough to cast spells. He ran the names through his brain as he tried to increase his speed, his wand ready, keeping Bellatrix in his sights at all times. If he did this he didn't have to blame Regulus.

" _Avada Kedrava!_ " he shouted, but Bellatrix was fast, and in turning to see where it had come from the spell missed, bouncing onto a rock at her feet. He kept running, because Bellatrix had turned her attention onto him now, and he had to be quick. He shouted the spell again, but this one went barely anywhere at all, instead fizzling in mid-air. Bellatrix laughed.

"Do you think you can beat me?" she asked, her spell that hit seconds before wordless. Sirius almost doubled over in pain, one of his legs almost buckling out under him, but he kept himself upright. Blacks don't show weakness, that was what he'd always been told. And if he had to have Bellatrix as his cousin, he'd have to use these things against her. "Awww, he does," she continued, flicking her wand at him once more, and this time Sirius was ready for the pain, but it was worse, and he quavered just slightly, his knees bending and his back twisting. "He thinks he can beat me."

"Fuck off," said Sirius. He'd have liked something more eloquent, but it was what he could manage. He forced himself upright, wand out. " _Avada Kedrava!"_ he shouted once more, and it made it closer to Bellatrix this time, but it didn't get far enough, and she just laughed.

"I'm going to kill you," she said, "but I might have a little fun with you first. _Crucio!"_

It was Sirius' turn to laugh. He wasn't entirely sure why, if he was honest, but he was laughing, even though all he wanted was to curse his own body off. He tried to raise his wand to do that, or curse Bellatrix, or something, anything that might stop him feeling as though his body would split apart, anything.

"Sirius!" he heard again. Hermione. Not that. He didn't want that. But his voice didn't work, and he was on the floor, and it felt like his blood was on fire, and so his words came out as a scream. A scream of nothing helpful, as his feet scrabbled on the floor - when had he hit the floor - and the fire in his blood didn't lift at all. He was going to slice his own foot off, soon as he could work out which way was up.

"Sirius?" asked Bellatrix, and the pain subsided just enough for Sirius to draw breath. His feet were betraying him, not allowing him enough purchase against the now sticky mud of the ground to get himself even slightly upright. "Sirius Black is dead! My cousin killed him, as well he should have! Sirius Black was a blood traitor, and he chose the wrong side, and he deserved his fate."

"No," said Hermione, firmly. "No, he didn't."

"Perhaps I'll kill you first," said Bellatrix, and maybe that was all Sirius needed. Because he suddenly found a way to get himself onto his side and up, and the curse he screamed this time went as far as it should have, and Bellatrix lay dead on the floor.

"Bloody hell," said Hermione, staring down at her. And then, "Sirius!" and she darted to his side, crouching down on the floor next to where he'd collapsed back into the mud without realising that's what he'd done. "Sirius, are you alright?"

"Nothing's fallen off," he said. "I'm fine."

"You're not fucking fine," she said, beginning to cast at his arm frantically. Sirius followed the line of her wand, and remembered the curse that'd got his arm, and, honestly, it was fairly close to falling off. "I know this one," she said, her face just inches from it as if that'd help her heal it, "I've dealt with these before. Ginny'd do it better, though, she knows more about this sort of thing than me, hold still, Sirius!"

"Can't," he said, "Ginny's in trouble."

Hermione elbowed him in the chest, possibly by accident, possibly as a way to restrain him. It made him catch sight of the blood.

"Lot of blood," he said, in a tone he hoped was conversational. "All mine?"

"Probably, you fucking idiot," she said. "Stay still. No saving anyone until I'm done. I can't make it perfect, you know, not with - _Protego! -_ all this going on!"

"Not my wand arm," said Sirius. He could still fight. It wasn't his wand arm, and he thought he could stand up now, and the mud was seeping into his back, anyway, it was probably matted into his hair. And he wasn't, he just wasn't, going to be lying here being fixed while other people risked their lives.

"Stay still!" she said, elbowing him down again. "It'd be quicker if you just stayed put!"

"Be quicker if people didn't keep firing curses at us," Sirius said, raising his wand as best he could and aiming at ankles. It was all he could do if Hermione continued making him stay in this sodding mud. "I love you," he added. "I love you."

"Don't, you're going to survive," she said, missing Sirius' point. "I love you too."

The ground shook beneath them, evidence of a blasting curse someone had fired, shards of a nearby shrub flying through the air like knives. Someone screamed. Many more shouted, a mixture of curses, explicative and warnings. Somebody died, their shadow falling with them.

And then something else. Not a curse or a spell of any kind, but a change in the air, a feeling of despair. Sirius gasped for breath again, even though the only pain was a light stabbing in his arm, and there was plenty of air. It didn't take any guesswork to know what it was.

"Dementors!" said Hermione, dropping his arm and sitting bolt upright, then beginning to tug at Sirius' wand arm. "Dementors, Sirius!"

Sirius didn't say anything. Dementors. All he could do was allow himself to be pulled up, and then to scrunch in on himself. If he made himself a small enough target they wouldn't bother him. If he could transform.

"Sirius!" Hermione shouted.

Two Dementors seemed to have singled them out, approaching as Hermione's otter Patronus flew from her wand. It corralled them, but a third had joined, and one Patronus couldn't do much more than keep two of them at bay. Sirius knew that. In Azkaban Aurors and guards and visitors had traveled in pairs. Threes on the higher levels, where there were more Dementors. Sirius had been on a higher level.

He remembered every bit of Azkaban. He remembered 1979 the first time around, he remembered the letter that said that Regulus was dead, he remembered both times Marlene had died. He remembered what had come after. James and Lily's bodies, Peter, Azkaban. Dementors closing in on him. Fresh blood, fresh memories, fresh misery.

"Patronus! Sirius, help me!"

Hermione's voice cut through the memories, just a second. He looked up, to stare down the hood of one of them. Darkness, nothing else, but how did they kiss with darkness? He remembered Harry by the lake, the Dementors descending, and Harry producing James' Patronus. He'd have cried, if he'd been able to.

"Sirius!"

"I can't," said Sirius, remembering the time his Patronus had been too slow in 1980, and a Muggleborn woman had been kissed by a Dementor. The Dementor had turned to him, fought off for a second by Sirius' too late Patronus, and then it'd shaken and failed, and only Remus' wolf had come between Sirius and the Dementor then. "I can't cast a Patronus."

Hermione grabbed his hand, pulling him towards her, and one eye on her Patronus and the encroaching Dementors, and made a grab for his face. Sirius could only think of the look on her face when Jo had been killed, the smoke of the house going up in flames behind her, and when the Death Eaters had set fire to that Muggle hospital, and the dark black sea around Azkaban. The Dementor's faces were just darkness. And they were approaching.

And then she kissed him, still half-looking at the encroaching darkness, and Sirius felt some of the despair lifting.

"You can!" she shouted, even though she was right next to him. " _Expecto Patronum!"_ Her otter leapt forth, renewed, and Sirius gripped Hermione's hand tighter.

 _"_ _Expecto Patronum!"_ he said, as confidently as he could, and he forced every memory he had of Hermione forwards. Their first kiss, and their wedding, the way she'd swirled around the living room of their house with her hand on his shoulder, the house that was probably destroyed. No. He thought of the way they'd sat together discussing how they could save his brother, the way she'd held him after the cave, the touch of her hand on his arm, the touch of her lips on his. And then the dog came out of his wand. A great silvery dog, an actual fucking Patronus, conjured by him, came out of his wand and into the world. The otter looked at the dog, appraisingly, and together they charged.

"You did it!" she yelled, and pulled him upwards with her, dragging him in the direction of their Patronuses.

"My arm," he protested. He caught a quick look, and it was still open from elbow to wrist, partially knitted back together at the top.

"It'll be fine," said Hermione. "It's going to have to be, isn't it?"

Sirius couldn't help but feel like that's what he'd been telling her all along.

They left Bellatrix behind, following the trail their Patronuses were making. Other silvery animals joined them, Luna's hare, Sirius recognised, and Ginny's horse, and a stag and a doe, and a wolf. And Sirius put more memories into his, if that was how it worked; Ginny when he'd cut her fringe in once, laughing about some rubbish, Luna trying to play Quidditch on the night of New Year's, Remus poking fun at the terrible television programmes Sirius watched, James and Lily's wedding, all of that.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Where we should have been going all along," said Hermione, grimly. "If we're going to end this we have to end him."

"Together," said Sirius. Except they didn't have Regulus. And they didn't have Adeline.

Ginny was next to him now, cursing a Death Eater as she stepped up to join them, Remus with her. His hair was singed, as if it has been set on fire, and his robes, too. Luna came up on Hermione's other side. And the woman who they'd met in the Department of Mysteries, too. Whatever the fuck she was doing here.

"Together," said Luna.

But it wasn't together without Regulus. So Sirius ran once more.


	68. Chapter 68: Plans U, V, W

_Hermione_  
 _November 1979, Bodmin Moor_

Sirius was gone before she could stop him, tearing away through the mass of people and light and sound that made up the battle, out of sight in seconds. Hermione thought about running after him. He might be out of sight, but he couldn't be far. But then, a shrub exploded next to her and between that and Ginny's duel, and whatever it was Luna was doing, she couldn't get through, not without putting herself in a line of fire. She was stuck here, and all she could do was scream his name. There was no response.

"Incendio!" Ginny shouted; the shrub burst into flames. A Death Eater Apparated away, and Ginny span to face Hermione. "What's the plan?"

"I don't have one!" They were so far off plan that it was as if they'd never written one at all, but, she realised, there was only really one thing they should be doing right now - exactly what they should have prioritised at the beginning of this. That gave her a strange sense of calm, even within all of this. They didn't need any more of an elaborate plan than this.

"Voldemort," she said. "It's about time we found Voldemort."

Ginny nodded. "Excellent plan. Oh, bloody hell, Aguamenti!" A jet of water flew from her wand, putting out the fire that had spread from the burning shrub towards Luna's legs. "Where is he?" She took up a position back-to-back with Hermione, still casting spells, because a fight didn't stop for them to have a pleasant chat. Hermione ducked a curse, reaching behind, and grabbing Ginny down with her. It was Ginny that dragged her up, seconds later, and they carried on as if it'd never happened at all.

"Should someone go after Sirius?" Remus asked, glancing around for Sirius as he dispatched a Death Eater.

"No," she said. "He's going to be fine." She didn't necessarily believe it. "He won't stop what he's doing, will he?" She looked for him one last time - nothing. No sign of him, or Regulus for that matter. Smoke rose over the battlefield; another plant exploded less than five feet away.

"No time like the present," said Luna, cheerily.

They started off, but they were only feet from where they started when there was a second explosion. Dust filled all of their eyes. Hermione reached out and grabbed onto what she thought was Ginny's arm, and, with her other hand, began casting spells to try to clear the cloud of dust.

"Protego!" Ginny yelled, it was Ginny she was holding onto, and Hermione felt the jolt as several curses hit the shield. It promptly dissipated, the spell fizzling out into nothing. "Protego!" Ginny shouted again, both her and Hermione together this time, just in time for the next volley of curses. They bounced off, shattering jets of light into a pattern that anywhere else would have been pretty, but here just represented that they weren't dead yet. That they were lucky. Both of them ducked as the shield collapsed in on them, Hermione's legs almost buckling under her. She wasn't sure how long they'd been fighting, though she was sure it was long enough that if she stopped for even a second, she'd not be able to start again.

"Shit!" Ginny muttered. "Where's Remus? Where's Luna?"

Hermione tried to look for them, amidst the clearing dust, but Luna was nowhere to be seen. Her hair was distinctive enough to recognise anywhere. Remus was harder to identify, but he certainly wasn't anywhere near them. There were multiple people with brownish hair and battered clothes, all of their clothes were the worse for wear, although, admittedly, not many of his height. Still., Hermione saw nothing, not that she had much time to look.

"I'm going to look for them," Ginny said, as Hermione fended off an attack from behind them. "Coming?"

Hermione tightened her grip on Ginny's arm, twisting around to get a better shot at a Death Eater.

"No," she said, panting, trying to fit the words in between spells. "No, we can't go after them, either, we've got to get to Voldemort, Ginny, we've got to make this stop!"

"Sirius might be," said Ginny, but she'd stopped trying to pull away from Hermione.

"Sirius has gone for Regulus, and I know you want to find Luna and Remus, and I do, too, but that'll just endanger someone else. Won't it?" She paused, whether to breathe or hex someone, she wasn't sure. Both.

Every part of Hermione was tired, every part of her wanted to run screaming after Luna, and Remus, and Sirius most of all, but this wasn't the time for that, it couldn't be the time for that. She hated being the sensible one. She hated being the one that couldn't even entertain the thought of saving a friend, of right now going after just one friend, but of having to save them all, or as many as she could, in one swoop. Her legs hurt, her face felt like it was crawling with insects, her back had crunched on one of her many dodges out of the way and now it didn't feel like it'd bend to the right, no matter how much she might need it to. Her wand felt erratic in her hand, as if it'd experienced too much magic tonight. Her spells felt off, too, either far more powerful than she'd ever managed to cast them before, or weak and lacklustre, the colours barely showing against the dust and the smoke.

And she couldn't stop to investigate her erratic magic, not even just to see if Ginny was experiencing it, too, and she couldn't stop to work out if her face was crawling because of curse damage or tiredness. She couldn't stop, at all. She had too much to do, and not enough time.

"Won't it?" she asked again. "We've got to go, haven't we?"

Ginny bit her lip, swore, and then in answer to Hermione turned and started running, Hermione's grip on Ginny's arm dragging her forwards with Ginny. Towards Voldemort. Towards an almost certainly ill advised attempt to kill him, which they didn't have a plan for, just to run headlong, Harry-style, into the biggest danger on the entire sodding battlefield. But there wasn't anything else for it, so Hermione picked up speed, and the two of them tore across the moor, casting whatever spells they could think of at anyone in a mask.

Hermione hesitated for a moment when they caught sight of Voldemort properly. He duelled with two Order members at once, wasn't that Dorcas Meadowes, Hermione recognised her, and Neville's dad, and he was winning as far as Hermione could tell. He was flanked by two Death Eaters, each duelling an opponent of their own, but they stayed with him as Voldemort duelled, his bodyguards, almost. It wasn't that which made Hermione hesitate, however, it was what was on the floor next to her. Dumbledore. Dead, clearly, because nothing else would have kept him down, and even if they hadn't had any contact with this Dumbledore, it still hurt.

And if Dumbledore could die against him, in a fair fight, not that business with Snape and the Astronomy Tower, then what chance did she and Ginny have?

Ginny didn't hesitate, however.

"Oi, Tom!" she shouted. "Tom Riddle!"

And Voldemort turned his attention to them.

"Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, the jet of green light hurtling towards Ginny, who ducked. Obviously that's where he'd start, and Ginny was ready for it. Frank Longbottom, clad in Auror robes, used the opportunity to Stun one of the bodyguard Death Eaters, darting to the body as it fell and Apparating away with it. Voldemort laughed. "Crucio!"

This one hit Ginny, who grimaced.

She should have done more than grimace, that was what registered in Hermione's brain, but not for any longer than it took for her to also register that this was an opportunity to strike. She cast her own curse at Voldemort; her first ever Killing Curse. He sidestepped it. They'd been leaping out of the way, ducking and diving from them, and yet, he stepped out of the way like it was a toddler with a water pistol. Hermione readied herself to try again. She could do this, she could cast the Killing Curse and make it work. Of course she could. Luna had done it, and she hated Voldemort, she wanted him dead with every fibre of her being, didn't she?

"Don't," said Luna, and she grabbed Hermione's arm. Luna hadn't been there before, which didn't seem strange, after all, there was so much noise, but Hermione should have noticed somebody coming up next to her. Hermione felt a tug behind her neck and the world began to disappear. Her first thought was to think she was dying, but this was Apparition, wasn't it? Hermione struggled, because this wasn't right, Luna wouldn't drag her away just as they were about to defeat Voldemort, would she?

They landed in a heap back at Thetford Abbey, or Hermione thought that was where they were, judging from the structure of the ruins around them.

"Luna," she said, dragging herself out from underneath the person she hoped was her friend, "Luna Elowen Lovegood, what what happened the day we met on the Hogwarts Express?" Hermione pointed her wand directly at Luna, or not Luna, her hand impressively steady, she was pleased to notice.

"Oh, quite a lot of things. The most unusual was that plant squirting Neville in the face, but you weren't really there for that. You were at a Prefect meeting. And when you came back, you were really rather rude about my magazine."

Hermione relaxed a little bit.

"What the fuck!" she shouted, for lack of anything better to say. It was that or some of Ginny's more creative threats. "What do you think this is? I'm going back."

Luna jabbed her wand at Hermione. "No you'e not," she said, consulting her watch. "Not just yet. Or perhaps you have. I'm getting myself into a muddle; luckily, I've been writing it down."

"I'm going back," said Hermione, firmly, and twisted on the spot to Apparate away, but, of course, nothing happened. She wasn't going anywhere, she was stuck here with Luna, of all people, and her inability to get to the point.

"We don't have much time," Luna said, which Hermione thought was stating the obvious. "Come along."

"Where?"

"All will be clear."

"Luna, now is not the time!" Hermione began to pace, while Luna stood entirely still. "We need to get back there, we've just left Ginny, and what about the others? This is ridiculous!"

Luna pulled something from her pocket. "If you'd stop shouting," she said, calmly, "I could have the time to explain, couldn't I? And the pacing is rather distracting, too, if less of an actual barrier."

"Time?" asked Hermione. "Luna, you haven't?" She'd thought they didn't have the time.

"Sort of. Betty did some of it, so I wouldn't like to claim all the credit."

"It's broken."

"Was broken. Something else I can only claim partial credit for, really."

"Why?" Hermione didn't have the time for this, or that's how it still felt. Yes, Luna was holding out the time-travel device that had brought them here, and it wasn't broken, and Hermione didn't have the first idea what to do with it. She had eight ideas, or nine, or eleven, but what to do first? That she wasn't certain of. "Why did you fix it?"

"Why not?" Luna could be so incredibly frustrating sometimes. "And because I had a use for it, I suppose. Then, one could also suppose that everyone in the universe would have a use for a time turner, whether they should be allowed one or not, but there you are. Perhaps I should say we felt like we had a compelling use for it. Betty and I, that's the we, by the way."

"I'd worked that out." Hermione ran through several scenarios in her head, rapidly, and then re-ran one of them with some different parameters. "So we're going to save everyone."

"No. Well, yes and no, really. We're not saving anyone from dying, but, rather, saving someone from an undeserved fate of a different kind, that, and our own existences here."

"How?" Hermione wasn't used to feeling on the back foot, but here, she did.

"Regulus is unconscious on the battlefield right now. Come the end of the battle, he's going to be arrested, wouldn't you say? And put on trial. His involvement in the Death Eaters is well enough suspected, and as soon as they find the Dark Mark, that's him gone."

Hermione stopped. "They might use Veritaserum."

"Yes. He's killed enough innocent people to get a life sentence."

"And he knows who we all really are." Hermione took up pacing again, a ridiculous habit, she hated it when Sirius did it. "So we have to get him out of there. No." She stopped again. "We have to do something that'll clear his name."

"Exactly," said Luna, sitting on the grass and stretching out her legs. "Apple?" she offered, pulling two from her pocket. "We should keep our strength up. I'm sure you'll come up with a plan. What plan are we onto now? U? V? What happens once we go past Z? Do we go to AA lettering, or would it be best to move onto a numerical system, perhaps?"

Hermione didn't have much of an answer to that. If she'd been left in charge of the plan, she needed to have one, and that was going to take as much time as she had and then some. But they had time. And Hermione could use that to her advantage. She thought she had something.

"It sounds simple enough," said Luna, "which perhaps only gives it ten ways to go wrong, rather than twenty. I do like simplicity."

It didn't feel simple to Hermione. It felt like a convoluted mess that could have easily twenty things go wrong, if not closer to thirty, but it was a plan.

"Hadn't we better go?" she said, as Luna bit into her apple.  
"Time travel," said Luna by way of explanation. "As previously established. And the importance of good nourishment before trying something difficult, hard, and energetic. Besides, my magic's gone fairly impossible to control hasn't yours?"

"Yes." Hermione sat down. She hadn't realised until now just how exhausted her legs were, and her wand arm, too. Her head felt like it was full of fluff. Luna tossed over the apple, and Hermione bit into it. She'd been hungry, too.

"Vitamin C," said Luna, wisely. Hermione found the time to work out that the itching on her face had been curse damage, and did enough to fix it that it shouldn't cause any permanent problems.

"What about everyone else?" she asked, once she was halfway through the apple. "Can't we save others?" Dumbledore, for example. Peter Pettigrew, if he really had died, she hadn't seen that one properly. Sirius might even be alright about saving him, now. And the other Sirius, and all the other Order fighters.

Luna shook her head. "It'd be too risky."

"But we've got a Time Turner again. We can go back as many times as we need."

"Can we? How do you know that?"

Hermione wasn't in the mood for a philosophical discussion. Luna, having finished her apple, began charming it to levitate a couple of inches above the damp grass, leaning back onto the rough stone wall of the ruins.

"Because you don't, do you?" Luna continued. "You were told to do it only twice a day at school, weren't you, three times in exceptional circumstances. And, if I'm right, you were explained that was on the grounds of making sure that you had enough food and sleep for the extra hours, am I right?"

Hermione nodded.

"That isn't entirely the truth, although, it is also something we need to take into account," said Luna, pulling a packet of crisps from her pocket as if the conversation had reminded her to do it. "It's altogether slightly more complicated than that, as these things often are. You see, there's only so many times we can mess with the fabric of time until things start to get confusing. If you're really unlucky, you can create some quite spectacular issues, paradoxes, and the like. And I think it's better we don't do that."

"How do you know?"

"People have experimented."

"You?"

"Not myself, personally, no." Luna sighed. "People of far worse repute than me, and that's even with counting the murder from earlier. I believe it, though. And, furthermore, the more magic that is happening around the time travel, the more issues can be caused. You saw the amount of magic back there. It's dangerous."

"Why would that make a difference?"

"I don't think we have time for the theory now, not really," said Luna, checking her watch again. "It might have to wait. Do you trust me?"

Hermione wanted to. Maybe she could just have this argument later. They could prioritise saving Regulus, yes, and then she could talk to Luna later, see if they couldn't go back for the others. The Ministry was always cautious with their guidelines on magical artefacts, they had been in her time and from history books she'd read, they had been for much of wizarding history, so there was bound to be more they could do with this than was officially sanctioned by the Ministry. She could save everyone, she was sure of it.

She sounded like Sirius.

"Yes," she said. "Of course I trust you, Luna."

Worst case scenario, she could steal it. It was hers anyway, it'd really only be taking back an unauthorised loan of the thing to Luna. Sirius would come with her, she knew he would. And if he was dead, a scenario she was trying not to think about, well, she'd save him first.

Luna checked her watch a third time. "Half an hour should do it fine from here," she said, twisting up her packet of crisps and replacing it into her pocket. "Forty-five minutes, maybe. Just to be sure we don't cross ourselves anywhere. Ready?"

"You can't do half-hour jumps on a Time Turner."

"Intent is as important as anything else, isn't it? Now, are you ready?"

Hermione nodded.

Thetford Abbey looked no different, being less than an hour previous. The moon was in a slightly different position in the sky, and the stars, too, but everything else was entirely normal, unaffected by the fight going on somewhere else. Luna carefully tucked the little black box containing the Time Turner into her pocket, having charmed it shut. Hermione waited. She'd got worse at waiting, she was certain of it.

"Hold onto me," said Luna. "I know whereabouts I saw him, after he was injured, so it might be better that I Apparate us both."

Hermione agreed by taking Luna's elbow, and within seconds they were back on the battlefield. Immediately they had to duck for cover, but Luna had brought them out at the right spot, less than ten feet from Regulus. They darted over to him. He was alive, at least, his chest rising and falling with his breath, but he wasn't in a very good way. She scrabbled in her bag for something that might help - really, she needed Ginny, she was much better at the spellwork side of this than Hermione was - and after a couple of minutes work, Regulus began to cough and splutter, coming to again. He wasn't in good shape, no, but he was alive, and he only had to cast one spell, after all.

"Adeline?" he croaked. "Sirius?"

"They're fine," Hermione assured him, hoping that he didn't work out the untruth in that. She didn't know either way if Adeline was okay. There was nothing to be gained from saying that to Regulus, however, and Sirius had certainly been alive at this point.

"I killed Sirius," he said. "I killed my brother, you know. I do not think that I have two brothers. I have a dead brother and an alive one, and I don't think I want to have killed him."

Hermione glanced up at Luna, her wand still casting spells at Regulus' body. Luna shook her head. Hermione's instinct was to bristle, and to plot a way to steal the Time Turner from Luna. If they could interfere for this, couldn't they for that as well? Time travel wasn't something anyone had the answers on, and Luna had admitted she hadn't done any experimentation herself, although, Hermione supposed you could make an argument it wasn't ethical.  
"We haven't got much time," Luna reminded her.

They got Regulus to his feet, shakily at best, and still muttering about Sirius. Now was the first time that Hermione properly doubted her plan - not that it couldn't work, but, that with Regulus in this state, that it wouldn't.

"Regulus," she said, positioning herself in his face, trying to keep his eyes focused on her and not on looking for an iteration of his brother. "Regulus, you have to listen to me. Can you do magic?"

"Yes. I am a Black, we can do whatever we like. Father said so. Father is wrong on many counts, so it is possible he is wrong on this, but I am a Black. Are you a Black?" He raised an eyebrow, listing off to the left.

"Yes," said Hermione, because that was the truth by blood and marriage, even if she hadn't been born that way. Regulus relaxed at that.

"I can do whatever you require," he said. "Except perhaps magic."

Hermione would never know how she got the half-lucid Regulus across the battlefield without incident, Luna almost dancing ahead of them, trying to dispatch or scare away as many opponents as possible. She had the beginnings of an idea why, actually, but now wasn't the time to think that through. She supported the dead weight of Regulus on one side of her, and held her wand in the other, helping Luna where she could. She'd been right about stopping, not that that was any consolation. Every muscle in her body rebelled against being expected to do this again, to dodge and duck and fight for yet more time. It'd be over soon. Hermione couldn't see any way it couldn't be over soon.

They took shelter behind a rock, Luna Transfiguring it to become larger, Hermione casting a few spells of misdirection, Regulus, a Muffilatio. He seemed better, Hermione thought, more aware of his surroundings. He'd brushed the hair from his face and the blood from his lip, and bent down to re-tie his shoelace. A body crashed to the floor next to them, dark robes, someone she didn't recognise, it could have been anybody.

"Not time yet," she said. "Is he ready?"

"I think he can do it." That wasn't really the truth - Hermione honestly didn't know at this point whether he'd be capable of doing it to nor. Maybe all he had to do was get up there and try. Would that be enough to satisfy the Ministry that he'd joined their side? He could cast the Killing Curse, he'd done it before, he just had to do it now.

"I can do whatever it is you require," Regulus repeated. His hair stuck on end, his robes torn, the Dark Mark on his arm exposed. He had none of his usual poise, and his voice had lost it's confidence, instead being something more like wishful thinking than a promise.

"We could go for Remus, too," said Hermione, deciding, against her better judgement, to ignore the fact of whether Regulus could do what they needed him to do or not. A Sirius tactic. Hope for the best and come up with a plan later if it's a worst-case scenario. "Did you see what happened to him?"

Luna shook her head.

"He disappeared when you did," Hermione went on, "and you made it back to us, you found us, so he can, too. We can do this," she added, "without using it once, I'm sure we can."

"You're sure?" Luna asked, as mildly as if they were discussing the weather.

"Yes." Another not-quite truth.

"We can only do our best," said Luna, and disappeared off into the dust and smoke, which left Hermione alone with Regulus. Hermione checked her own watch. Almost like she was picking up Luna's tic, but it was more than that. She had to concentrate, she had to know when to act.

"You've got to kill Voldemort," she said. "That's it. That's all you've got to do. I'll get you there, just point your wand at him and kill him."

"Adeline will be fine if I do that." It wasn't a question, not really, but Hermione still felt like she was lying to him.

"Yes," she said. She felt like she was manipulating him, actually, but she was hopeful Adeline would be fine, and this was as much for Regulus as it was for anyone else. "We're all going to be okay. Everyone will be, if you can kill Voldemort."

Regulus nodded. For a moment he retained some of his usual mannerisms, the way he had always seemed to be in command of a situation. Neither of them were in control here though, Regulus or Hermione or anyone else. Still, it gave her some hope.

"Kill Voldemort," he repeated. "I suppose that should not be too difficult." He even had a half-smile, as if he was joking.

"Drink these," said Hermione, checking her watch once more as she handed Regulus a collection of vials. Pain relief, blood replenishers, a Pepper-Up potion, something to help him remain steady. "We've got to go soon."

"Where?" Regulus asked. "I always aim to be on time, yes, but I do not think you have told me where I am going."

Hermione didn't think this was going to work. Regulus had lost it, yes, that was the technical term for this. He'd lost it and she wasn't convinced they had any viable hope of getting it back before he had act. This had been a terrible plan, they always were, when you rushed into them like this, terrible, but it was what they had. She checked her watch. Delaying would only make it worse now.

"Now," she said, to Regulus, "we have to go, now." He blinked at her but staggered up to join her without question, thankfully, raising his wand alongside hers. He blocked a curse that came speeding their way, while Hermione got her bearings again. Time to go.

They arrived with seconds to spare; Hermione caught sight of Luna grabbing onto her, the other her. This is how Sirius must have felt for a year and a half, she thought, as her stomach gave an involuntary jolt at the sight of herself. Her body seemed to want to be sick. Instead of that, she tugged at Regulus' arm.

"Come on," she said. "You can do it, Regulus. For Adeline, remember, for the baby."

Regulus stared blankly back at Hermione, looking like a deer in headlights as much as he did anything else, and then, with a momentary look that was so much more like the Regulus she knew, he ran. He bolted in the direction of where Hermione had disappeared from, towards Ginny and Voldemort, and Hermione followed him. What else was she going to do, honestly? She sprinted, wand out, ready to fend off Death Eaters. Ginny, catching sight of them, couldn't stop to show her surprise

In just a few seconds, they crossed the small expanse of mud, and Regulus drew his wand. Voldemort turned, his face entirely impassive.

"Regulus," he crooned. "My loyal servant."

Regulus blinked. Once. Twice. He took one more step forwards.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Someone screamed as Voldemort's body topped, hitting the ground with a soft thump. He was gone. Nothing happened, no sign of any soul escaping, nothing except a body. Voldemort was dead, and, for the second time that Hermione had witnessed it, nothing felt any different.

He'd done it, Regulus had done it. Hermione leapt to throw her arms around him, catching sight for a moment of his face, baffled and confused, as she pulled him into her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him, almost lifting him ff the floor, because that felt like the only thing she should be doing right now. He'd done it, hadn't he?

"I killed the Dark Lord," he said, muffled into her shoulder. "Adeline will be safe."

Sirius. She had to look for Sirius.

Hermione released Regulus and turned to go, to run off in the last direction she'd seen her husband, but obviously, she should have known it was obvious, the fight wasn't over just because Voldemort fell. A roar came from the nearest Death Eaters, and a barrage of spells followed without much time to prepare. Of course they'd want to kill Regulus - he'd just killed their Dark Lord. He was a traitor. So she couldn't go anywhere, of course she couldn't leave, morally or physically, because Regulus might have killed Voldemort, but that was all the force of will he'd had left. He still stood exactly where she'd left him, his wand raised as if he didn't remember what to do with it.

She closed in on him, alongside Ginny, and Dorcas Meadowes, who was muttering something about never having expected to defend a Death Eater. But she fought without question, they all did. Hermione magaged to release a Patronus, somewhere in the middle of it all, calling cor help from Luna, Remus, Adeline, anyone, Sirius, of course, she needed Sirius, and she needed to get everyone out of this alive.

Something exploded, a crash that sent reverberations through the earth at their feet, and all they could do was fight.

And then they weren't fighting any more. A last few Death Eaters remained loose and fighting, casting more and more vicious spells, no longer fighting to win but just to inflict damage. Aurors were beginning to roam the area rather than fighting, corralling captured Death Eaters together and followed by Hit Wizards with clipboards. Healers, too, were going from person to person, treating wounded and releasing the dead to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"They're going to come here soon," said Ginny. She'd dropped down to crouch at Dorcas' side, on the floor, but she wasn't doing anything at all. Hermione realised she ; that's why Ginny wasn't doing anything. "I want to find Remus."

"He'll be okay," said Hermione. She hadn't felt nervous at all while fighting. Exhausted, yes, occasionally panicked or scared for her life in the immediate future, but not nervous like this. The pit of her stomach twisted and turned. "We're all going to be okay, now."

Ginny raised an eyebrow.

"I killed the Dark Lord," said Regulus.

And Hermione still wanted to run to find Sirius.

Ginny climbed up from the floor, scuffing in the mud with the toes of her trainers. "Plan?" she asked. "Regulus really needs medical care, not a bloody interrogation. Would it be worse for him if we got him out of here?"

"Yes. It'll look like he's running away."

Ginny sighed. "I'll do what I can," she said, "but it'd be helpful if you could attract the attention of a real Healer. I have no idea what curse this is, or what combination, honestly, I don't know where to start. Sit down, Regulus, can you? I'm just going to see if I can help you at all."

Hermione left them to it, starting off towards where a clump of Healers stood. One of the people at their feet was Peter Pettigrew, she realised with a jolt. He'd not done anything wrong this time. He'd been fighting for their side all the way through, he'd done everything right. This wasn't fair. What she needed to find wasn't a Healer, and it wasn't Sirius, either. It was Luna. She needed to explain to Luna exactly why they had to go back again, exactly how they could do more than save just Regulus. They could do more; they had to do more.

"He's Peter Pettigrew," she said, to the Healer standing next to him. The elderly witch with her hair scraped back into a bun looked up from her clipboard, her mouth in a line.

"I see. And would you be his next of kin?"

"No, that's his mother," said Hermione, realising she didn't know Mrs Pettigrew's name, anyway. "But I knew him. He was fighting with the Order of the Phoenix, he died trying to save Voldemort. He was brave, and nobody should forget that he was brave."

"That we won't be," said the Healer, her mouth softening. "And who would you be, dearie? Do you need help, or a Calming Draught?"

"No, no," said Hermione, acutely aware of the burn on her hand, which she hadn't really noticed throbbing until now, and something was wrong with her leg, but she didn't have the time for any of that. "I just wanted him to be remembered. He was brave." She should mention Regulus. "He needs help," she said, "over there. With the ginger-haired woman. He killed Voldemort."

"I see," said the Healer. "Well, we'll be sending someone to him, but you won't be going anywhere until I've looked at that burn. It gets worse with time, you know, you don't want to be leaving that."

Hermione, honestly, couldn't care less, but she submitted to some burn paste applied by a nervous trainee Healer called Annie, and someone else looked at her leg, which was curse damage, and she took the potions they handed her without complaint, but not the Calming Draught.

"I don't need it," she said, because, frankly, she had too much to do to be calm, this wasn't a calm sort of situation. "I'm fine. Honestly. I need to find my husband."

"Marjorie wants to check you when she's back." The trainee couldn't help but glance over her shoulder as she said it, over to where Majorie, if that was her name, was still crouched over Regulus with Ginny. "She was quite insistent."

Hermione was quite insistent, too, she'd been told so many times. On this occasion, she just ran away. The trainee Healer could be heard protesting, but Hermione had things to do that were more important than what was really a very minor injury. She could go and get it checked tomorrow if it was that important - not that she thought it was - and, she didn't have time for it today.

A safe distance away, further than she thought the Healers would want to run, Hermione stopped and tried to get her bearings. Nothing she recognised, really. Every part of the moor looked much the same as every other part. The smoke and dust was clearing now, and most of the people too, but that didn't help her see Sirius. Or Luna. She'd gone the same way as Luna had, or so she thought, but there was nothing to orient herself against except rocks and shrubs and whether you were running slightly uphill or down. Still, Luna couldn't be far.

Sirius was another matter. It would be impossible to work out which way he'd gone without finding the starting point, and that'd take just as long as looking for him without working out his trajectory. And there was Remus, and Adeline, to find. She had to prioritise.

So she could find Luna, and risk her not allowing them to use the Time Turner. Or they might use it and save more people. Hermione could steal it. It was hers, anyway, wasn't it, so it wasn't even stealing, more just returning to the rightful owner. Or she could go after Sirius, which was what she wanted to do, but that was selfish. She'd be choosing one person, her husband, over however many other people.

What did you do in that situation? What would Sirius do?

No. She loved Sirius, but he was a terrible example of forward planning. He'd get that Time Turner somehow, and he'd use it, and never mind whether there were consequences, scientific or otherwise, and he'd probably get himself into some kind of trouble. Like he almost certainly had now, even without any help from time travel. No, much better, what would Harry and Ron do?

They'd want to go back, of course they would, but if she'd told them she didn't think it was a good idea, based on facts and evidence and research, they wouldn't do it. They'd got a good outcome. Hermione felt sick to her stomach as she thought that, but it was true. Voldemort was dead, and they weren't - Sirius was alive, he had to be - and it could be over. And that was all she'd wanted at one point. To not have to fight again, to live a peaceful life. She could go home, if she wanted.

She was abandoning the people that had died.

But if she went for Luna, she might be abandoning others.

She didn't know if Sirius was alive or dead.

Hermione had made her decision. Without a chance to second think it, without allowing herself a chance to second think it, she ran again, her legs burning, off in the direction of the last place she'd seen Sirius. She had to find him. She had to choose him.


End file.
